Worlds Collide
by pencil gal
Summary: Condensed, revised and reposted. Draco is suddenly transported Los Angeles, America and discovers that his father is actually a notorious vampire and that he's the middle child of three sons.
1. Prologue

Prologue  
  
Ariel walked down the cobblestone road of the deserted street dressed in his dank brown habit. He stopped in the middle of the dark street and lowered his hood to reveal the features which endeared him to all adults when he was young and now caused women to look twice at him in the streets. The bright moonlight reflected upon his blonde hair and caused a malevolent sparkle to appear in his cold blue eyes.  
  
The young man smiled as he surveyed the empty, night covered streets of the town which he would one day destroy. Ariel had his whole life figured out, the Land, where he lived, would be destroyed by him with the help of his childhood nemesis. Looking upon the houses that lined the street, Ariel was reminded of his destiny as he felt the fear that emanated from the cowering people who lived there.  
  
Ariel continued walking down the street, smiling as he went, for he knew that soon enough the temporary order that took a hold on the Land would fall apart and leave the path open for its destruction. The blonde haired youth was going to complete the task that he was born to do and the disorder that was being created was going to help him do it.  
  
His thoughts were interrupted as a noise behind him alerted him to the presence of someone. Turning around Ariel saw no one and put the noise down to his own paranoia, dismissing his fears Ariel continued his stroll. The young man was stopped midstep though as he was stunned by a sudden flash of white light and the absence of ground beneath his sandaled feet.  
  
---------------  
  
Draco Malfoy, the only son of the evil pure-blooded wizarding family who were funnily enough named the Malfoys smiled to himself as he walked quickly but smoothly down the darkened hallways of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
  
The faint torchlight that illuminated the hall made Draco seem like a blur as he rapidly made his way to his dorm room within the Slytherin Dungeons. His smile didn't falter as he saw his housemates sitting quietly in the common room. He nodded to a few of them and continued up to his dorm room to deposit his books and perfect his seemingly unruffled looks.  
  
The Slytherin boy had a lot to be smiling about. Not only was he nearing the end of school, and therefore the obligation live with his hateful parents, Draco had also had a winning argument with his arch nemesis Harry Potter and his best friend Weasley. But that wasn't all; Draco's unusual relationship with one-third of the Golden Trio was coming along nicely.  
  
Hermione Granger was a girl that had to be respected, what, with her undeniable intelligence, fierce demeanour and constantly wicked barbs Draco couldn't help but like the girl, even if she was a muggle born witch. It also didn't matter that he did spend most of his time exchanging banter with her and trying to get a rise out of her, but then again, that was half the fun. What made Draco even happier was the fact that Draco was about to go meet Hermione for the express purpose of talking to her, actually, he was more or less going to try to get a rise out of her.  
  
Soon enough Draco arrived at the library, although not after checking his hair in the boy's bathroom, and slipped past Madam Pince before she saw him and marked him out as the trouble maker he was. He walked quietly to the back of the library and immediately spotted Hermione sitting at a table with her back to him and her head stuck in a book. Slipping past her and sitting in a chair next to the brown haired girl Draco said softly, "Hello my little bookworm."  
  
Hermione looked up, smiled and quickly replied drolly, "And hello to you to." Draco settled himself in his chair and stared at Hermione unnervingly, raising his eyebrows. In response Hermione cocked her head to the side, examining his bemused features. Her eyes widened as there was a white light which made her turn her head away. When she looked back and saw an empty seat where Draco was previously sitting she simply said, "Oh."  
  
---------------  
  
Dally walked halfway up the cracked concrete path that led to the rundown house in which he was temporarily staying and sharing with three other guys. He could hear the sounds of a wild party underway inside and sighed in defeat, accepting the fact that he would spend yet another sleepless night in the company of wasted people that he didn't want to know.  
  
Dally slowly trudged his way up the path and pushed open his broken and unlocked front door to reveal people already sitting in the hallway. Everyone turned to look at the striking figure that was Dallas Winston, the cold hearted hoodlum with blonde hair and blue eyes who would be considered good looking if it weren't for the scars that marred his features and the permanently stern and sharp edged look upon his face.  
  
The cold hearted man walked down the hallway, eyeing off the occupants of it as he went, only breaking his cold inspection of them to step over a girl who was lying in the doorway of his room. Unsurprisingly Dally found that people were sitting in his room, thankfully they were only talking. By dropping his backpack heavily Dally grabbed the attention of the partygoers and motioned for them to get out of his room.  
  
Slamming his door Dally turned to his bare room and grabbed the beer he had bought on his way home out of his bag and sat himself on his bed. Opening a can of beer Dally briefly acknowledged what he was trying to wipe from his memory. He was trying to forget his dismal life where he rarely had a home for more than a month, where he only really had one or two friends and a life that was absent of the one person that he ever really cared about; the one person that he ever considered family.  
  
Dally shook his head to rid himself of the ever stinging memory of his dead friend Johnny. He chucked his empty beer can on the floor and reached for another one, but he never did reach it as a white flash of light assaulted his senses before he could.  
  
--------------- 3 Years Earlier ---------------  
  
A vexed and tired Spike turned to Harmony who was sitting on a banc in the dirty streets of Los Angeles. Spike took a breath and said to a bored Harmony, "So let me get this straight. You took our three sons, who some shaman guy asked for and let him send them to three different universes."  
  
"Yup," said Harmony, looking around the street.  
  
Spike bent over until his face was but three inches from Harmony's and said, "And why did you bloody well decide to do that?"  
  
"Well." Harmony began, starting to fidget.  
  
"Well what?"  
  
"He said that if I sent them away for a while they would be given all they could ever want, except that they would have to go to different universes."  
  
"What was in it for you?" asked Spike evenly.  
  
Harmony spluttered, although she quickly composed herself to reply with a false innocence, "Why would you think that?"  
  
"Because there is always something in it for you. Am I right?"  
  
"Yes," admitted Harmony who looked up tearfully and defended herself, "But it's hard you know? I thought that if they went away for a while we could at least have a break or something."  
  
Spike nodded, stood back and said knowingly, "Uh huh, how about you try the truth this time?"  
  
Harmony rolled her eyes, "Okay, he also offered to give me a trip to Paris."  
  
"So after all this trouble trying NOT to have these kids we finally get them, only for you to trade them away for a friggin' trip to Paris." Spike looked skywards and shook his head, "Can there be anyone stupider?"  
  
"But Spikey-"  
  
"Don't Spikey me, LOVE."  
  
"You don't understand," said Harmony, standing up to plead with Spike, "They'll come back in three years."  
  
Spike just shook his head and said to her, "Look, the bloody problem is that we don't know how old they're gong to be or what's happened to them. For all we know they could be flower sniffing, tree hugging pansies."  
  
In spite of Spike's obvious vexation Harmony said sweetly to him, "Can't we just go to Paris and come back in three years to pick them up?"  
  
"Christ Almighty Harm, I don't car what you do, go to bloody Paris and don't come back because I'm going to stay here until it is time to get them and clean up the God-awful mess you made." Harmony looked at Spike, hurt at his dismissal of her. "Don't you understand? I don't care what you do; just bloody well go to bloody Paris."  
  
With those last words Harmony mustered all the dignity that she had left, held her head up high and walked away from Spike, leaving the vampire standing outside a grubby bar on Lafferty Street in the dirty and crowded city of Los Angeles. 


	2. Season 1: Episode 1: Collisions ie the c...

Chapter 1- Collisions (i.e. the catalyst of all catalysts)  
  
Today was the day that Spike had been waiting for for three long years. He was sitting at a small round table in the middle of the rundown Lafferty Street Bar, counting down the minutes until his sons would come back from their god forsaken universes. Spike began to tap his foot impatiently, he had said the magic words and lit the bunch of herbs that he had acquired and now all he had to do was wait; and that was proving to be the hard part.  
  
Looking at the long forgotten clock on the wall, Spike smirked eagerly as the minute hand tick closer to the twelve. The omnipresent hum of the nearly empty bar was broken by the crackling sound of energy and a brilliant white light which the two patrons and bartender ignored. All of a sudden there were three blonde haired, blue eyed young men sprawled in a heap on the sticky floor of the Lafferty Street Bar.  
  
The three boys hastily separated themselves from their tangled mass and quickly looked around with their attention finally landing on the smug looking man standing over them with his arms folded. Spike smirked at them and said, "Welcome home boys."  
  
They all looked at him, confused as to what they were doing there and what the man in front of them was going on about. Dally was the first to get his wits about him, stood up and asked Spike accusingly, "What am I doing here, how did I get here and who the hell are you?" Dally accentuated his last point by poking Spike threateningly in the chest.  
  
"Look my boy," said Spike, holding his hands up as if surrendering. "There's no need to get antsy with me."  
  
Draco, who had gotten up during the exchange rounded on Spike and said, "Yes, there bloody well is something to get antsy about! I was just about to meet Granger when all of a sudden I'm apparated, against my will, into some stinking bar full of muggles. So yes, there is something to get antsy about."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Dally asked, obviously confused at Draco's unusual choice of words.  
  
Draco opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Spike. "Look, sit down and I'll explain. You," growled Spike at Ariel, who was still sitting on the floor, stunned, "get off the floor and sit at the table." At the sound of Spike's uncompromising tone Ariel scrambled off the floor and into a seat at the small round table which Spike was sitting at earlier.  
  
Spike took his seat at the table with them and looked around at his blonde haired sons, who each wore clothes from their previous homes. Ariel was wearing some sack-like thing that looked like a monk's habit, Draco was wearing a messy school uniform with what looked like a bath robe over the top of it and then there was Dally, who was by far the most normal looking of the lot, wearing jeans, a t-shirt and boots.  
  
Spike realised he was staring when Dally said to him, "Well, are you gonna explain now or what?"  
  
"Yes, I will." Spike leant back in his chair and smirked at them. "You see, you three boys are my sons, and I am obviously your father."  
  
"Are you kidding me?" was Dally's immediate disbelieving response.  
  
Spike simply smirked at him while Draco was shooting looks at him that screamed 'you need help'. Ariel simply looked confused, still in a state of shock from his sudden appearance in the bar.  
  
Draco, being the trouble maker that he was decided to humour him. "So, you're saying that we are your sons?"  
  
"Well, yeah," said Spike plainly. "And you haven't heard the best part yet."  
  
Dally nodded and said sarcastically, "Yeah? And what may that be?"  
  
"Your mother and I are both vampires." Spike, upon seeing Draco's steadily whitening face and vague look of horror, said somewhat reassuringly, "I won't bite.well, not you lot anyway."  
  
Dally still looked at him disbelievingly. "You expect us," said Dally with a note of doubt in his voice, "to believe not only that you are our father, but that you are a vampire as well?"  
  
"Well what other explanation is there? What? You reckon that you just magically fell out of the bleeding sky? Well, actually, you sorta did, but that's not the point, I got you here because I'm a vampire and you lot are my sons," said Spike, emphasising his points with a few finger points here and there.  
  
"Haven't you ever heard of apparating?" asked Draco incredulously. At the shake of Spike's head Draco heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes skyward. "And you call yourself a vampire, but then again that's what you get for living with muggles for so long."  
  
Dally frowned and asked Draco curiously, "You actually believe that there are vampires?"  
  
"Well, there are vampires, don't you know anything?" was Draco's nonchalant reply.'  
  
"Of course I don't, I'm not some nutter like you two," said Dally, gesturing wildly at Draco and Spike.  
  
Ariel, who had so far been silently observing the proceedings spoke up suddenly, "What's a vampire?"  
  
Spike's patience was tried and tested and had failed, so instead of answering Ariel's question he morphed into his vampire face and said to the three boys in front of him, "One of these."  
  
Dally let out a yell and scramble away from the table with Draco by his side. Ariel frowned, cocked his head to the side and said, "Oh."  
  
Spike was a bit taken back by Ariel's disconcerned attitude, but ignored it, figuring that he did, after all, come from a different universe. He then turned his attention to the two stunned boys standing up. "Do you believe me now?"  
  
They both nodded faintly.  
  
Are you gonna take a seat fellas? Or are you just going to stand there forever?"  
  
Draco and Dally resumed their seats at the table as Spike resumed his human face. Well, now that Spike had got the message across that, yes, he was their biological father, what do you do? Spike began by giving each of his sons a clip over the head.  
  
"What the hell did you do that for?" asked Draco defensively.  
  
Spike smirked and said simply, "I've always wanted to do that." Dally shook his head din annoyance whilst Ariel looked at Spike, confused.  
  
Since this was not a happy feel-good movie, the reunited family did not begin talking and laughing as if they'd known each other for their entire lives. Instead, they all took the lapse in action as a chance to size each other up properly.  
  
Draco began to systematically examine his new 'family' in the manner which he had adopted from Lucius Malfoy. He watched Ariel in his weird clothes and decided to leave him be; he was looking decidedly homicidal today. Draco smirked as he looked at his brother Dally. Dally had a tough demeanour, sharp eyes and most importantly, he was imposing, which always came in handy for those physical confrontations. Finally, Draco studied his father, who looked every bit the tough, British hooligan that he was; Draco could tell that his new family was all someone blonde haired, blue eyed and evil as he was ever wanted.  
  
Then something hit Draco, his brothers were muggles and his father was a vampire. He was a mudblood. With this revelation Draco's face paled and his eyes widened. Spike, seeing that Draco was having some sort of panic attack, slammed his palms on the table, breaking the silence that had reigned supreme for the last few minutes.  
  
"Well," he said, "now that we're acquainted with each other, I think we should go and visit one of my dearest friends, Uncle Angel."  
  
So, the family of blonde haired blue eyed evil people se off into the polluted LA night in search of their dearly unbeloved Uncle Angel. 


	3. Episode 2: Who wants to play happy famil...

Disclaimer: if you really wanna read it go back to chapter 1 or 2.  
  
A/N: ello ello ello. Heres the next chapter. Lets just keep making this story even more confusing shall we? We shall. So here ya go.  
  
Worlds Collide - Samantha and Jaime  
  
Chapter 5 - Who wants to play happy families anyway?  
  
Angel sat in his nice spacious office of the Hyperion Hotel with an overly happy Lorne and an unusually approachable Connor. Let's not go into details about the twisted, confusing and funnily soap opera like life that Angel and his cronies lead. Let's just say that they were happy and peaceful, sort of. Well, as peaceful as a vampire with a soul, a demon and the son of two extremely evil and powerful vampires can get.  
  
Connor and Lorne were actually conversing when Angel, being the sharp guy that he is sensed that someone was approaching the glass doors that led into the foyer of the Hyperion Hotel. Angel got up and walked into the middle of the foyer to wait for this mystery person's impending arrival. Then, it happened. The glass doors were kicked open with an almighty bang and revealed a smirking Spike and his three sons.  
  
"Well boys, this, is your Uncle Angel," Spike said whilst still smiling at Angel as if he were a little ray of sunshine.  
  
"And, may I ask, who are my nephews?" The three aforementioned sons stepped fully into the foyer to see their Uncle Angel, who they were told all about on the way to the Hotel and, to their father's immense pride, smirked evilly. Immediately Connor and Lorne stepped behind Angel to back him up in case of a fight, they all had their eyes narrowed in a weak imitation of the evil glares which our favourite family had down pat.  
  
"When was the last time I saw you Spike?" Angel inquired thoughtfully.  
  
"The last time I tried to kill you. That was what, two, three years ago?"  
  
"Let me just say that the last time I saw you, you didn't have three teenage sons," the fact that Angel had recognised the three boys with him as his sons unnerved Spike a bit. But then again, he dismissed his fear as he also recognised Angel's son to whom he hadn't yet been introduced.  
  
"I could say the same myself but I don't want to bore you all. Angel, these three boys are my sons Dally, the eldest, Draco and Ariel. I thought I might bring them to meet someone they might get a warm welcome from, seeming as they only just met me and all. So why didn't I get to meet your wonderful bundle of joy over there," said Spike lightly gesturing to the forever frowning and steely looking Connor, who, if possible glared at him even more which made him look even stupider than he usually does.  
  
"So, you're telling me that two, evil vampires who used to run with each other both have sons? That sounds something like a prophecy," said Lorne with a mind working in paranoid overload. The boys who had backed their fathers were getting quite bored of the glaring game and relaxed their stance.  
  
Angel looked at Lorne with a thoughtful look on his face while Spike snorted, "What a load of bull shit. My boys were hidden by bloody Harmony for some dumb blonde reason, I get them out and find that Angel has got a kid as well and you reckon it's a bloody prophecy. You, my demon, have been working with crack pot Angel-baby here for way too long."  
  
Angel, ever being the fast thinker and mediator of all man kind mildly said, "It could be true."  
  
Spike shook his head, "No, I think not. But Angel, seeming as we've known each other for such a long time, that you've got such a big place," Spike gestured to the foyer, "and that you're such a charitable bloke that maybe you could house me and my boys for a little while before I go back to Sunnyhell Farm to introduce these three handsome chaps to Buffy and her slayerettes."  
  
Angel simply stared at the vampire in front of him and his sons who were now staring at him expectantly, needless to say he was feeling a bit out numbered. These boys being Spike's sons meant that they were going to be fighters. Also being one for peace came to his decision, "Fine, only if I don't have to feed them or clothe them or have anything to do with them."  
  
"Righto boys, lets go and find us some rooms," said Spike while rubbing his hands together and smirking thinking of all the things they could do to Angel with out Angel having anything to do with them.  
  
Connor and Lorne looked at Angel as if he were a traitor and deserved to be crucified in the town square for his treacherous deeds, except there weren't many town squares in L.A so they were already a bit stuffed with their plans. Needless to say, with two vampires with sons, a demon and several other innocent civilian vampire hunters in the same living quarters, life was going to be interesting for a few weeks to come.  
  
A/N: hey there cowboys. Theres ur chapter. Read and review its all u gotta do. By the way no flames. Its fine if u have constructive criticism, we'll gladly hear it, but if all ur gonna do is pay us out and not tell us whats wrong then just shut up. By the way we don't care if Draco has grey eyes. We say he's got blue in this story he does.  
  
~*~*~Samantha and Jaime~*~*~ 


	4. Episode 3: Reminiscing

Disclaimer: see chapters 1 and 2.  
  
A/N: heres chapter six. Lots of remembering the past in this chapter.  
  
Worlds Collide - Samantha and Jaime  
  
Chapter Six - Reminiscing  
  
Spike marched behind his sons up maze of stairs and hallways to two large bedrooms, "You three shall sleep in this room and I'll have the other. You are not here just to lark around. I'm going to get you trained, you two look like you haven't had a decent fight in your whole life," he said, looking at Ariel and Draco, "other than that we're here to cause a bit of havoc, chaos. Do you like the sound of that?"  
  
The boys looked at each other and nodded, Draco smirked that no longer Malfoy smirk, "Sounds bloody fine to me."  
  
"You'll meet me downstairs in a few minutes, you all need clothes. Normal ones not robes or medieval looking rags." With that Spike entered his room and shut the door. This left the new siblings to themselves.  
  
Cordy walked into the boys' room. Draco said, "Hey there gorgeous."  
  
Cordy started shouting. "Who the hell are you three? Get out of my room now!" They looked at her dumbstruck. "ANGEL!" Cordelia yelled at the top of her lungs. Angel, Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Lorne and Connor came running into the room. Spike sauntered in after them. "Angel who are these three dumb idiots and why are they in my room?"  
  
Spike stepped up, "Oh they're my sons. Nice to see you again Cordelia, you're looking smashing." Spike looked around at the fang gang. "Hey what happened to that other dolt that used to work here?" Spike enquired, "What was his name? Dole? Diyle?"  
  
"His name was Doyle," Cordy said in a very threatening and menacing way. Even though she had great friends Cordelia still missed Doyle a great deal. Spike kept looking around at the people in the room. His eyes landed on Wesley.  
  
"Hey don't I know you from somewhere?" Spike asked.  
  
"No I don't think so, I've never met you before Spike," replied Wes in his clipped English accent.  
  
"Oh yeah I know you," Spike continued not listening, "You were Buffy's Watcher when Giles got fired. What are you doing here working for big baby Angel? You get fired from the Council too?"  
  
Wesley looked angry enough to kill. Draco decided to jump in. He had been looking Fred and Cordy up and down the whole time people had been talking. "Oy Dad! When do we get introduced to these fine ladies?" Draco smirked.  
  
Spike gave an identical smirk. "Well, Draco my lad this pretty little thing here," points to Cordy, "is named Cordelia Chase. She's a muggle, as you would say, attended Sunnydale High, was a cheerleader, used to be a precious Scooby till she failed at that, then she moved to LA to be an actress which she also failed at."  
  
Cordy gave Spike a condescending frown but continued where Spike left off. She had been eyeing Draco while Spike was speaking and thought 'he's kinda cute for an evil git'. "I also get visions and I'm a higher being." Spike looked at her surprised.  
  
"You, a higher being?" Spike was incredulous, "My God why would the Powers That Be make you of all people a higher being?"  
  
"Hey!" Cordelia exclaimed in an indignant voice, "I can be very higher being like thank you very much!" Spike just gave her an amused glance.  
  
"Dad you didn't say who the other one was," said Draco looking at Fred.  
  
"Oh her?" Spike glanced at Fred, "I wouldn't have a clue who she is."  
  
"Hey! Are we gonna get introduced or what? I do like to know who I'm living with." Dally piped up.  
  
"Of course. So silly of me. Dally, Draco and Ariel meet Cordelia, Wesley and other people I don't know," Spike said, "Cor, Wes and others meet my sons."  
  
Dally, Draco and Ariel smirked at them. 'This is gonna be fun' thought Draco, as the group of do-gooders stared at the rather evil intruders which Angel had welcomed inside their own house. "Are you three just going to stand there like morons or are you going to remove yourselves from my room?"  
  
Draco, taking the lead said nonchalantly, "Eventually," all the while eyeing off both Cordelia and Fred who looked a little bit flustered at the whole situation.  
  
Gunn, Angel and Connor caught the looks of obvious flirtation and immediately tensed into over-protective-you-won't-get-my-girl-bad-guy- stance. Spike, being the little bugger that he was smirked and looked at Angel, saying the forbidden 'b' word, "So, Buffy no longer in the picture ay? Looks like I can finally get my foot in the door now."  
  
Angel, having had a couple of hundred years to gain control of his temper still failed hopelessly and grabbed Spike by the collar and slammed him into the nearest wall. "Don't you dare to even try to go near Buffy because if you do I will personally rip you limb from limb. Clear?" By this time the sons had surrounded Angel and were, themselves surrounded by Angel's gang, it looked like it was all going to become an all out gang bang. But Spike gave a look at his sons which told them to back off, which they did.  
  
"There's a problem with your threat Oh Angel the Almighty. I've already been near her, touched her, been with her. So your threat is going to involve getting whole lot of Spike out of the carpet of Cordelia's lovely room." Angel kept himself perfectly still along with the rest of the room which froze at the revelation. Angel slowly lowered Spike back to the ground and began walking slowly down the hallway to his room.  
  
A/N: Samantha: yep there you go chapter 6. btw we don't care if dracos eyes were grey. In this fic they are blue coz we said so, so there *sticks out tongue*  
  
Jaime: nah nah nah nah nah nah *also sticks out tongue*  
  
Chapter 7 will also be up today.  
  
~*~*~ Samantha and Jaime ~*~*~ 


	5. Episode 4: Angel brooding, old style

Disclaimer: if it is so important to you go back to the first chapter.  
  
A/N: heres chapter 7. 2 chapters in one there might even be a third chapter if I can finish ch 8. Anyway, here we go, here we go, here we go, on with the show!! *Sam does a little snoopy dance*  
  
Worlds Collide - Samantha and Jaime  
  
Chapter 7 - A little bit of Angel Brooding, Old Style  
  
Angel POV  
  
Why? Why did she do it? No, I know that she slept with the guy; if there is one thing that Spike won't lie about it's about what he does with Buffy. I don't know, maybe it was the whole "I died and you brought me back from the dead thing" I don't know.  
  
But I remember all the time she spent battling Spike, battling myself and Spike at the same time. I guess that I can see that Buffy never really developed a full grown hate towards him, he was always there, not particularly life threatening, but there. I've seen Buffy battle the worst of the worst so many times, but she never desperately had to kill Spike. When she wants someone dead they get dead pretty quickly, if she really wanted to kill Spike, and I know that she could, he would not be here today.  
  
I don't like to admit it but I still want her, still hypothesise about what life would be like if I hadn't left. Even though it's been years since I left Buffy, even though Cordy has somewhat stolen my heart, even though I have lightened up and become someone else, I still am the same Angel who lurks in shadows and never smiles. I'm just hiding it. With Buffy I never had to hide that side of me, I was a dark, brooding person and she accepted that, I could never imagine Cordy putting up with my attitude.  
  
Cordy, the new love of my life and the bane of my existence (A/N this is obviously not a cordy/angel fic). She makes me hide my depressed outlook on life, but I am who I am, and eventually she'll see that I am the same man she encountered and tried to crack onto so long ago in Sunnydale. I love the girl, but she just doesn't understand that I'm still attached to Buffy, the girl who changed my entire existence and proved to me that there is life beyond being undead, she changed me and Buffy is a part of me because she is part of that change.  
  
Girls aside, Spike, I'd like to kill the smarmy bastard right now. Not only because he was with Buffy, but that seems like a good reason at the moment. He has three sons that look up to him. They've just met him, look like him, act like him and will stick with him. My son just tried to kill me, slept with Cordy, was quite evil for a while and has a few problems with who he is. Spike's sons, even though they are blatantly evil don't have those problems, except that Ariel kid, he looks like he has a few problems involving an urge to kill people.  
  
What do I do when I go back up there? Pretend its okay? Chuck a temper tantrum to show how bad I am and how much I want attention? I think I might do the stay silent and mysterious move, it usually works.  
  
End POV  
  
A/N: chapter 7, chapter 7, lalalalalalalala Elmo's world. I might also put up 8 today maybe....  
  
~*~*~ Samantha and Jaime ~*~*~ 


	6. Episode 5: A bit of perspective

Disclaimer: I am so sick of doing this. Anyone who thinks we own these characters are idiots. Whoever the plot is ours so don't even think about stealing it. *growls*  
  
A/N: ello ello ello. Chapter 8 is here. Lalalala lalalala lalalala.  
  
Worlds Collide - Samantha and Jaime  
  
Chapter 8 - The world through different people's eyes  
  
Connor POV  
  
I watched as my Dad walked away in a huff and turned around to find Spike and his son Draco smirking evilly, looking like clones of each other. "So, who are you two then?" Spike gestured towards a tense looking Gunn and Fred.  
  
I snuck a look at Cordy who was looking hurt. Wait, Cordy looking hurt, over Angel? I thought she didn't love him anymore, I mean, she slept with me, is that not a sign? I want her to look at me and realise that she has nothing to be hurt over, she's got me instead. I'm gonna have to win her back, she's everything to me, I can't lose her to Angel, to anyone.  
  
But I have no idea how to win a girl; I can't exactly ask anyone I know. I looked at the sons and saw Draco give Fred a look that sent her beet red, he looks like he knows a few things about girls though......  
  
Wesley POV  
  
I looked around at the unusual people gathered in Cordelia's room, Gunn and Fred seemed at a loss for words so I stepped in and took the lead, "Spike, Dally, Draco and Ariel, this is Fred," I said motioning to Fred, "and this is Gunn. I hope that in these rather bizarre circumstances that we are all in that we can be civil to each other throughout this whole ordeal."  
  
I raised my eye brows and looked around at everyone, pausing to look at Gunn, who was close to losing control and Spike, who had some form of facial muscle twitch as he is constantly smirking. Then Draco spoke up, "I'll be more than civil, if you don't mind." The boy said this while giving Cordy such a crude look that I myself, who usually has such self control felt like punching him in the face. His brother Dally simply chuckled, bemused by the whole situation.  
  
Dally POV  
  
Draco is one hell of a player. I mean sure, these girls are good looking, but eyeing them off when one obviously has a boyfriend standing at her side and the other is being fought over by father and son, that takes some game. I have to admit though, that for Draco to get girls it wouldn't take much, sure I look like the guy but he hasn't been fighting on the streets like I have.  
  
I watched as Gunn advanced towards Draco with a murderous look on his face and then get stopped by both Wesley and Dad, I myself wanted to see what Draco could do and what this Gunn guy could do, I love a good fight. I know, he's my brother and yeah, I do feel close to him, but I just met the guy, and it doesn't take five seconds to get to know someone. I can tell that we all step in when someone threatens 'cause we all love a bit of a fight, its not like we're gonna put ourselves in the way of a truck to stop the other get killed. We just wanna fight.  
  
Gunn POV  
  
Just as I was about to reach the little thick headed runt Wesley pulled me away, that kid had it coming, looking at my girlfriend like that. Wes then pulled me aside, "Gunn you can't go around spoiling for a fight with these kids, their father is Spike. Even though he has a lot of enemies I'm sure he has a lot of friends. We need to be civil to each other, if we can't its just going to end up in one huge mess that can't be fixed because half of us will be dead! Spike holds grudges, I hope you realise that."  
  
"But Wes, that kid was making a pass at my girlfriend. I can't let the guy get away with it; otherwise he'll do it again."  
  
"No you can't. I know that he isn't a normal boy, he's the son of two vampires, he might be like Connor," with that Wes walked away, but I knew that I was going to have a word to the kid later, no one does that to my girl and gets away with it.  
  
"Come on Fred, lets go," we both got out of there and headed for our rooms.  
  
Ariel POV  
  
I left the room behind Dally and was shown to our new room by my uncouth brothers. Who looks at a woman like that? Only a vagabond if you ask me. In the Land I would have Draco sentenced to hard labour in no time. After leaving my hapless brothers to their own devices I wandered the halls and eventually came to the lobby where that green monstrosity was sitting.  
  
What is that thing? I sat down on a chair across from it and looked at it. It looked back at me and started to say something talking about some strange prophecy.  
  
Spike POV  
  
I walked into my sons' room to find only Dally and Draco there, "Where the hell is Ariel?" my boys just looked at me and shrugged, which wasn't very articulate of them, I didn't want speechless morons for sons. "Dally we are going to do some training. Draco, I will work with you later, at the moment, I want Dally."  
  
I led the boy outside and down a dark street to another bar even more depressing than the one where we all met.  
  
A/N: well there we go that's chapter 8 done. 3 chapters posted in one day. U should all consider yourselves lucky.  
  
~*~*~ Samantha and Jaime ~*~*~ 


	7. Episode 6: Training

Chapter 9 - Training  
  
A/N: a warning! Extreme Connor bashing ahead. You have been warned.  
  
Dally and Spike entered what you could only call a dive. It was dirty, smelly and had some weird green goo all over one end of the bar. You would expect to see the usual down and out guys, but this time there were down and out demons, "Dally, its time you grew up and out of fairy tales and into the real world. I'm a vampire and these," Spike said gesturing around the bar, "Are demons. The type that like to kill humans. And we are going to fight them."  
  
Dally had had enough shocks in one evening to believe this without questioning the rationality behind it. Dally was calm as he looked around at the demons in the bar who had begun to sit up and take notice of the unfamiliar people standing in their bar. Spike and Dally then approached the bar and lent on it, arms crossed and looking pretty damn mean, and both calmly ordered drinks. Spike lent over to Dally and began to talk in a low voice to him, "If you look mean, and confident demons like these will always take it as a challenge because you are only human to them. The trick is to keep it calm as they approach you looking for a fight, I guess you know that already don't you? The difference between demons and humans is that the demon will not ask you to step outside, they're too stupid and impatient, and they'll attempt to finish you off where ever they are. Another thing is that they don't have any friends to back them up, if someone's gonna back him up then they're usually working for a purpose, not just for the fight."  
  
Dally took another calculating look around the bar and stopped to look at the green goo over the other end of the bar, "I take it someone else has already been in a fight," Dally said to Spike, gesturing towards the end of the bar. Spike nodded not looking at Dally but at the big, blue slime demon lumbering up to them.  
  
"What would you like old chap?" Spike cockily asked the demon which stood a good head taller than Spike.  
  
"I would like to kick your human arses out of my bar. Humans think they own everything and I'm going to change that," rumbled the demon whilst sizing them both up.  
  
"Oh really? Well, we aren't exactly human are we Dally?" Spike looked at Dally who nodded. Spike turned around and vamped out while doing so. Dally took one look at what had averted the demon's eyes and lashed out at the demon, punching him. It wasn't that Dally had expected his father to turn into some form of a demon; Dally was now in a state of mind where he accepted whatever was thrown at him. At this point in time you could've told Dally that he had to wear pink undies on his head and he would've just nodded and put some pink undies proudly on his head.  
  
The ensuing fight involved a bit of dirty fighting on Dally and Spike's part as they ganged up on the unsuspecting demon. In the end Spike ended up knocking the demon unconscious because he couldn't find anything to kill the demon with, the owner of the bar was obviously expecting a bit of bloodshed and had procured only blunt objects to fill his very unrespectable bar with. So the father and son finished off their drinks while all the patrons in the bar wisely decided against trying to attack the impostors and began to walk the streets of LA.  
  
When they reached a main street Spike turned to Dally, "There are only two things wrong with they way you fight. With demons you need to use weapons."  
  
"Sure I can use weapons, you know, chains, bottles and knives."  
  
Hitting Dally upside his head Spike said to him, "No you dumb blonde, I mean swords. You can't bloody well decapitate a demon with a bottle. If you know how to use a sword or at least learn to improvise you'll have no troubles." Dally, whose ego was still bruised from the hit to his head just nodded. "How about we go kill something, or at least kick the crap out of it, eh? That's always a bit of fun."  
  
So Dally and Spike, the father son team walked off into the night to find something else to prove their masculinity with.  
  
But meanwhile back at Angel central.  
  
Ariel sat down and stared at Lorne who simply stared back, "Are you just going to stare at me all night, because I really have to hit the hay in a little while." At this Ariel just stared as if he didn't believe what he referred to as 'it' could talk, "Oh, so you're not too talkative, maybe a bit shy? Hmmm, I'd never figured the son of an evil vampire who loves to hear his own voice to be quiet."  
  
Ariel finally blinked and opened his mouth to talk, "What in Lud's name are you?"  
  
Lorne was a taken aback at this question, wasn't it obvious to the kid what he was? But no, Ariel had spent his whole life in a world where ordinary people were burnt at the stake just for being different; needless to say he had never come across any sort of demon before in his life. Except the demons that the wayward religion of the Herders had pounded into his brain. Lorne then decided to take it slow with the kid; he was the most confused and the least cocky one of the lot, "I'm a divination demon. You know, as in not human. There are lots of demons, just ones that aren't as nice and charming and gorgeous as me. Trust me, as much as you don't believe it but that last statement is true."  
  
Ariel simply nodded and decided to ask his newly found father about it later. But this didn't stop him from staring at Lorne as he moved around the office and finally said his farewells for the night. Lorne was a tad bit perturbed by the freaky way that Ariel was looking at him with a mixture of I-want-to-kill-you and I-can't-believe-that-an-inanimate-object- is-alive. Let's just say that it was a damn scary mix. Ariel then made his way through the maze of hallways to reach his room.  
  
As that interaction was happening something else was going down in the Hyperion Hotel as well.  
  
Draco, now abandoned by both of his brothers and his father in an unknown hotel decided that now, when he was alone and unfamiliar with the whole muggle world, was not the time to stir up trouble. I bet you're asking what kind of trouble Draco liked to cause, well, he preferred trouble that either involved the complete and utter embarrassment of someone he thought as below him or he liked to cause chaos in people's relationships with their significant others. He took quite an interest to the vulnerable and fragile Fred who obviously hung on to the people who lived in the God forsaken Hyperion Hotel for a feeling of belonging, to be identified as someone of worth. This was one of the few places that such things occurred in LA and Fred made sure that she wasn't going to lose something so rare.  
  
Now we come to Draco who had no crowd to tease or entertain and therefore nothing to do. Until there was a knock on his door. Draco, being cautious because he was sure that Fred's over protective boyfriend was out for his blood, slowly got up from his bed, walked silently over to the door and took a look out the peephole. Standing at the door, and looking quite out of place and nervous was the son of gloom itself, Connor.  
  
Draco had already put Connor into a box reserved for half wits, Dumbledore and people who frowned for no damn reason. Connor had elements of all these characteristics, with the exception that Dumbledore had some intelligence where Connor had empty space. Needless to say this justified labelling of Connor had considerably lowered any respect Draco never had for him, making Connor below the rank of the foulest thing on earth in Draco's eyes.  
  
Draco again slowly opened the door, looked at Connor and cocked an eyebrow, "What do you want?"  
  
"Can I come in?" Connor asked in the never ceasing monotone he had acquired throughout his rather pointless life.  
  
Draco lowered his eyebrow and began to study Connor in a serious manner, which put off Connor's resolve to ask Draco for help. Mind you this wasn't ordinary help, this was help with girls, the one thing that men are supposed to know all about and the one thing that Connor had going for him. After a lengthy study of Connor Draco replied to Connor's request for entry, "What on earth for?"  
  
Connor was getting steadily uneasy standing in the hallway and looked at the ground as he answered him, "I need some help, um, help with.girls." At this rather pathetic plea for help Draco plastered his family's infamous smirk on his face. Unfortunately Connor did not catch this and inevitably fell into a trap that he had set up himself.  
  
"Well, it's getting late; the others should be back soon. You don't want all of them knowing about it do you?" Connor shook his head looking at Draco almost reverently, "I'll talk to you about it when we're both alone, and you know when I get a chance. Here comes Ariel now." And what do you know there Ariel was, walking down the hall, Draco quickly said to Connor, "See you later eh?" Connor nodded and walked away just as Ariel arrived at the door way.  
  
Ariel looked passively at the retreating back of Connor, which meant for Ariel that he was glaring at him, "What did he want?"  
  
Draco smirked at Ariel as he stood back to let his brother into the room, "The guy wants help with girls. I think it might be with that Cordelia chick, I can understand why he wants help, 'cause he hasn't got a chance with her," then Draco began to chuckle. "Like hell I'll help him."  
  
The brothers then smirked at each other as they imagined all the things they could do to the son of gloom itself who had just beared to two of the most evil siblings in LA his true desire. What Connor failed to take into consideration was two things, never trust blonde haired blue eyed people and that two minds are better than one.  
  
A/N: There you go. Read and review its all you gotta do.  
  
~*~*~ Samantha and Jaime ~*~*~ 


	8. Episode 7: Fighting class and other, equ...

Chapter 10- Fighting Class and some other, equally interesting stuff  
  
As night settled on the Hyperion Hotel the non evil occupants tried to rest but to no avail. Connor was fretting over his decision to go to Draco for help and whether Angel had won Cordelia over yet. Angel was still agonising over Buffy and Spike. Gunn and Fred were both thinking of the young blonde haired boy who had flirted with Fred earlier that night, while Wes was wondering whether they would live throughout the rest of the week, let alone weeks to come. Cordelia was simply wondering what on earth had hit them all, and then realised that the arrival of blonde haired, blue eyed evil people had sparked something that was inevitable, after all, their lives did have an element of afternoon soap opera shows embedded in it.  
  
The evil occupants were having a peaceful sleep after their ventures of that night. They slept the sleep of the extremely tired and evil.  
  
The next morning, unbeknownst to the three blonde haired blue eyed evil sons of Spike, was already planned out for them. Spike had arranged for his sons to take part in what he mildly called training. At precisely eight in the morning Dally, Draco and Ariel were woken to the bang of their door being swung open and hitting the wall by a somewhat happy looking Spike. Amid groans, protests and a terrible amount of coarse language Spike said to his sons, "Boys, today is going to be an interesting one. Be in the foyer in thirty minutes; get some grub on the way there if you can." Spike then turned around and began to walk out of the room, "And one more thing. Don't dress up, we're not going to a bloody fashion parade, Draco, I'm talking to you." With a look at the annoyed Draco Spike left, leaving three evil sons to deal with the evils of being woken up early in the morning.  
  
Even though the three blondes did not want to get up and did not want to have an interesting day, they were in the foyer of the Hyperion Hotel thirty minutes later to discover that their father wasn't even there. Instead, they were in the company of the sleepless and, in most cases, hostile permanent occupants of the Hyperion Hotel.  
  
Draco, being the shit stirrer that he was gave Connor a smirk, a raised eyebrow and a not-so-discrete look at Cordelia. This, of course, did not go missed by anyone in the foyer. And, to Draco's delight, Connor, the guy who always has the same stupid look on his face actually blushed. To add to Draco's wonderful sense of accomplishment, everyone began to get confused over who to glare at, the evil sons or Connor, who was obviously scheming something with the aforementioned evil sons. It was this precise moment of confusion and Connor turning beet-red that Spike decided to make an entrance from where ever he was; they were all too busy doing what they didn't do best to notice.  
  
Spike reached the middle of the two groups, his sons and Angel and company, and gave a nice big smirk at the lot of them, "So, what did I miss?" At this question there were a few grumblings and murmurs as the people who worked at the hotel did, for once, what they were supposed to be doing, work. After seeing them all to their respective jobs Spike turned to his sons, "Follow me, we have some work to do."  
  
As they walked through the rather nasty looking underground tunnels that led from the Hyperion Hotel to other parts of the city Dally spoke up, "Why do we have to go through sewerage drains to get where we want to go? I mean, there are things such as buses and cars."  
  
Spike stopped and turned around and looked at his eldest son, "I'm a vampire; I can't go out in sunlight. You know, burning UV rays that come from the sky? That Bram Stoker didn't write that book for nothing."  
  
Spike and sons resumed walking as Dally said under his breath, "We're gonna have to buy a van."  
  
After walking what was roughly three blocks Spike began to talk to his sons, "What we're going to do today boys, is some fighting." Spike already knew that the protests would come and said to them, "Yes, I know you can already fight, just not the way I want you to fight. We're aren't going to be fighting other kids who happen to annoy you, we're going to be fighting demons and vampires and people who can do more damage than your average person. Dally; you know what I'm talking about," he then turned to his two younger sons with an explanation, "We went out for a bit of a drink and a fight last night. You are all obviously learned in the art of psychological warfare, as I could see back there Draco. But you lot couldn't fight someone who had any form of weapon apart from his fists, so I'm going to train you to do proper fighting. And here is our exit."  
  
Spike then took a ladder out of the tunnel and magically popped out into an abandoned factory. He then stood by as his sons hopped out of the tunnel and into the huge, empty and dank space of the factory. The floor was covered in dust and grit and all the windows had been blacked out. But it was big and it was dark, which is obviously just what Spike had been aiming for.  
  
Back at the Hyperion Hotel though, something else was taking place, something along the lines of an argument. Gunn was pacing back and forth in the foyer while Lorne and Fred were standing behind the front desk. Angel, Connor, Cordelia and Wesley were simply standing around the room looking around at everyone solemnly, the argument was about whether to let Spike and his sons stay.  
  
Gunn was extremely anti-evil sons, "Why should we let them stay, they've been here for not even a full day and already they've started scheming something." This was aimed mainly at Fred, who wanted to give Spike and his sons a chance, but the last comment was aimed at Connor, who looked at his feet as if they were his saviour.  
  
Fred then began to argue rationality, which is never high on anyone's list when you lived in the Hyperion Hotel, "They haven't really done anything though. Angel said they could stay if they didn't have anything to do with him and they haven't. You've also got to take into account that they have just found out who their father is! Two of them have come from entirely different universes; I know how it feels to be in a dimension where you don't know what's happening, where you don't know anyone and where you're disorientated. We can't kick them out. Where is Spike going to take them? Some horrible place where he will turn them into evil killing machines? If they stay here then we can keep an eye on them and make sure that they don't get too evil."  
  
Fred was obviously oblivious to the fact that they didn't have the ball in their court, the sons had power over them, so, Angel, being the guy that he is agreed, "I reckon we should let them stay, Fred's right, we have a chance to stop them from getting out of hand. We all know that someone who has evil tendencies isn't as bad as someone who is out of control." Fred looked at Gunn with a "well then?" expression.  
  
"Whatever you say Angel, but if that slimy Draco kid looks at Fred like he was again, I'm going to tear the guy to pieces, no matter what anyone says," Gunn looked around at the unresponsive group around him.  
  
And, as per usual, it was high time that Wesley put his two cents in, "What you are overlooking is that these sons are already evil. Have you seen the way Ariel looks at us? He is the essence of an evil child, seemingly docile, or in this case just hostile on the surface with his true, evil intentions underneath. I believe he might be planning something." Everyone just looked at him doubtfully.  
  
Fred, again arguing for the three sons who she secretly thought were quite good looking, brave and charismatic said, "But it's obvious that Ariel came from such a different dimension. Did you see the way he was looking at the lights? It's probably just his form of defence, hostility." The obvious example being Connor, the ever frowning boy.  
  
Angel nodded his head as everyone looked at their leader who apparently had forgotten about the fabulous performance he put on last night. Cordy finally chipped in as well, "I reckon we should let them stay, I agree that they might be a little lost and need to gather their bearings." The whole time she was saying this she was thinking how amazingly good looking Draco was, it seemed that the evil sons had the female occupants of the Hyperion Hotel wrapped around their fingers. And only Draco had noticed.  
  
Lorne stood up straight, stretched and groaned loudly, getting everyone's attention, "Well, I still believe that there is some form of prophecy happening here. Isn't it a bit odd that they all just turn up?"  
  
Wes looked at him as if he were a child, "They didn't 'just turn up' Spike got them out of their respective dimensions so that he could involve his sons in some evil plot."  
  
Angel sighed, fed up with the conversation, "Wes, he isn't doing anything like that. I know Spike, if he were creating some form of plot he would be very obvious about it and some of us would most likely to be dead already. After all, we all slept in the same building last night with out any trouble from him. I think he just wants to take his sons back to Sunnydale for some perverted reason." Angel then did a repeat performance of the night before, and walked slowly over to his lift thingy and went downstairs. And what did he do downstairs? He did the adult version of sulking, he brooded.  
  
Back upstairs though Connor carefully looked at Cordelia's reaction while trying not to look like he was doing so, which he failed miserably at. Cordy then looked at Connor, "Have you got anything to say about all this?" She asked all this in an overly sugary sweet voice.  
  
Getting uncomfortable being the centre of attention he nervously said, "No.I think I'll go now." With that he bounded out of the room as fast as he could.  
  
This left the remaining group in the foyer to look at each other in uncomfortable silence to make their excuses and to escape from the situation they were in. They all went and thought about the three blonde haired blue eyed sons of a blonde haired blue eyed vampire and how much they were screwing with their minds.  
  
--****--  
  
Ariel, for the fifth time landed flat on his back on the overly dirty floor of the abandoned factory. He raised himself onto his arms and looked at his father who was standing over him with his eyebrows raised; Ariel said to him, "Does it really matter whether I get this one thing right or not?"  
  
Spike answered without moving a muscle, "Yes, it bloody well does. It could save your life, whether you want to be saved or not." Spike then walked away from Ariel towards Draco and Dally who were sitting on a bench looking bored. As soon as Ariel was on his feet Spike turned around and began to attack Ariel for the umpteenth time that day, but this time it was different.  
  
Ariel had watched his father fight both of his brother's over and over again that day and watched as Draco, who knew magic and thought it pointless to learn how to fight, was pitted against not only Spike but Dally as well in endless battles. Ariel had identified his father's pattern of fighting, though he wasn't particularly strong, he was cunning and used the underlying pattern to his advantage. Ariel successfully fought off Spike's attacks which ranged from merely punching him to trying to impale him with some stick he'd picked up off the ground.  
  
Eventually the father and son came to a standstill and Spike regarded his son, as if sizing him up, "I think we're ready." He looked across at the other boys as they stood up and walked towards him, "You're all finally done, about bloody time too. I was beginning to think you would never get it. Tonight we test what you learnt." Spike walked to what appeared to be the doors of the factory, but truth be told, you couldn't tell what was what in the factory that housed only black looking things, "It's still light outside, we'll have to take the tunnels back."  
  
But Draco turned to his father and said, "I still don't know why we're doing all this. I know magic; things can be so much easier. Sure, a wand looks and is a bit pansy but you wave it, say a few words and it's all done!"  
  
Spike turned and looked at him, "The point is, if you don't know how to hit someone properly, without magic, you don't stand a chance against some of the stuff we're going to see. I also don't want my boys not to be able to fight, it's like having a gun and no bullets, you see, I have a bit of a reputation to uphold. People are out to get me, and consequently, you, so you need to be able to fight. The magic is just a plus."  
  
Spike then jumped down the manhole that they had emerged from previously that day and set off towards the Hyperion Hotel, a few seconds later, his sons followed, they were inevitably grumbling to each other about the drain. Much to Spike's chagrin they then began to argue about who was going to needle Connor tonight and Draco spoke up, "You know, I could give him some crackpot advice that will actually take him one big step backwards. After he sees that Cordelia chick and talks to her, you guys can go and prey on his insecurities, it's that easy."  
  
"But you get to give him the advice," said Ariel. "That's going to be so much more fun than making him uncomfortable."  
  
Dally then spoke up, "Think about it. We get to see him cave in; he might even lose it if we work on him enough. Even better is that he won't say a thing to anyone cause he is goin against his own father to get the girl."  
  
"Anyway, he only really trusts me," Draco said and opened his mouth to continue but was cut off by Spike.  
  
"You have tons of time to screw with the offspring of Angel-the-Almighty- Saint-of-Nothing. Right now we're going to paint the town, but not in the usual way." Spike turned around and smirked knowingly at his sons, "The demon world of LA is waiting for something to happen and we're gonna be the instigators because honestly, this town couldn't get anymore boring. Too many holier than thou characters wondering around saving hopeless bloody lives."  
  
The town of LA was left waiting till sun down for their town to be painted with the blood of demons.  
  
A/N: Spike doesn't have his soul but he can't hurt humans. you know all with the chip in his head and everything. Hence explaining the lack of human corpses. Read and review its all u gotta do.  
  
~*~*~ Samantha and Jaime ~*~*~ 


	9. Episode 8: Explosion

Chapter 11 - Explosion  
  
Word spread quickly through some commodity or another that the sons had learnt to fight with Spike. And they were now expected to leave. They didn't. So instead all current situations that had happened since Spike's arrival were put on hold. Needless to say, tension grew, suspicions arose and not a word out of ordinary was spoken. Spike and his sons had the desired environment; tense, largely silent and a different level of communication that flowed under the surface of every move being used.  
  
The situation at the Hyperion Hotel climaxed and also came tumbling down in the span of twenty-four hours. It all started off at five in the morning, when only evil and the sleepless were awake.  
  
*************  
  
Spike wandered the hallways of the hotel in a drunken meander. He was back from a night of brawling and drinking in what was his weird version of 'quality time.' You'd think that after a full night of activity that he would have had enough action for one night, but he wanted someone else to stir up. The desired person at this time of the morning being the bane of his existence, Angel.  
  
It was just Angel's luck that he had been unable to sleep. What was plaguing his tortured thoughts? It was Spike, Buffy and Cordelia. The situation had multiplied in Angel's brooding to a near apocalyptic problem that could only be solved through either some weird ritual he had read about in 1856 or the immediate death of Spike. Angel's preference was the death of Spike. Spike, who had told Angel that he had slept with Buffy, had made Angel possessive of Buffy; he was afraid that she actually loved Spike. This thought was not unfounded though, after all, Buffy only slept with him after they discovered their undying love for each other. All these thoughts of Buffy led Angel to believe that he had 'fallen out of love' with Cordelia, something which he so desperately didn't want to happen as he knew that he could never be with Buffy.  
  
So we find Angel and Spike prowling the halls in their stealthy and sneaky vampire ways, albeit both of them being either drunk or occupied. Spike had just gone around the corner and entered a rather dusty hall which obviously hadn't been cleaned for that last twenty years, but being a vampire that didn't matter to him. What mattered though was that Angel was standing still in the middle of said hallway looking at Spike. Spike smirked at him, "What are you doing out of bed? Isn't it a bit too late for you young man? How on earth are you going to be able to get up and brood a bit more about your precious ex-girlfriend?"  
  
Angel stood still, alternately thinking about Spike's death and how to keep calm in the presence of Spike. After a few moments he finally tilted his head and said to him, "I don't know what you're on about Spike, do tell me."  
  
Spike cockily took a few steps forward and swayed a little as he came to a stop, "Oh come on, as if it doesn't bother you that I had the slayer in the sack. You've been thinking about it, I can tell. Why else would you spend all your day in your cave when that Cordelia chick is runnin around with your bloody son?"  
  
Angel stood still as his mind reeled with what Spike had told him. He was vulnerable; he was in a moment of doubt and hadn't seen what had been going on properly in the hotel. But, he kept still and passive, "Really? Has he? I didn't know, isn't that sweet though?"  
  
Spike saw straight through Angel's poor act, he had never known Angel to be slack on verbal sparring. Spike mislead Angel further, "No, it isn't nice to know. You hate that your own son, your flesh and blood has taken the girl you hopelessly want and must have. And what's even worse is I know why you want her. She's your second prize isn't she? Just second place because you can't have the slayer, and what pisses you off even more is that the girl who was once yours hopped into the sack and had a go with me. That is why it isn't nice to know."  
  
Spike walked towards Angel until he stood not thirty centimetres from his face, "What is worse than that is the fact that Cordelia doesn't want you, doesn't love you. She likes your dolt of a son better, the dolt of a son that wasn't even supposed to happen. You have no chance to get her anymore, your son's got her and you know that you can't get her back. You haven't got a chance because you are a vampire with a soul that can be lost, you will never grow old, you will never have another child and you will never be able to love her completely because your heart is eternally with Buffy. Nothing will change that you love Buffy, nothing will change that."  
  
Angel stood silently and unblinking in that hallway as Spike smirked at him with a malicious glint in his eyes. Angel slowly turned around and walked away from Spike with what was left of his heart completely smashed and with out hope.  
  
***********  
  
Six AM  
  
Draco heard his father lumber heavily down the hallway, open his unlocked door, slam it and then land heavily onto his squeaky bed. Draco turned his head to look at his sleeping brothers who had crashed after their third night in a row of making trouble with demons on the streets of LA. He sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side and quietly got dressed and slipped outside into the hallway.  
  
Draco knew that there was no better time to bait Connor. Tension had been built up over the last couple of days and now Connor was more desperate than ever. If he left it too long Connor would do something himself, and he mightn't make such an idiot of himself if Draco didn't tell him what he should do. Draco began to walk aimlessly down the hallway; the only problem was actually finding the hapless boy.  
  
Draco turned down one of the many monotonous halls in the hotel and hit the jack pot. There was Connor, his back turned to Draco, climbing in a window. What is an evil son to do but take advantage of the situation? "So," at this Connor jumped and whirled around immediately, "you don't actually live here. Why wouldn't your generous and holier than thou father want you here? Too much competition for him?"  
  
Connor straightened himself up and composed himself, but with acknowledging what he had done to get himself kicked out his shoulders sagged and he looked at his shoes, "I put him in a box and put him on the bottom of the sea for three months because I believed that he wasn't really my father."  
  
Draco raised his eyebrows and took the conversation in a different direction, "Are you ready to get Cordelia once and for all?"  
  
Connor looked up at him hopefully and nodded. Draco stalked towards him and smirked softly at him, "I'm ready to give you all that my knowledge can offer." The plan was that instead of making it seem that Draco told Connor what to do, they decided to make it so that Connor thought that the solution was obvious and that he had come up with it himself. Also it would rule out the possibility of Connor blaming Draco for any of his actions, it would seem that Connor had thought up the whole thing himself.  
  
Draco looked around the hallway and looked at the many doors that lined it, "Shall we get ourselves comfy?" There was a nod from Connor as Draco opened a door and went inside. The lights were hit to reveal an ordinary room consisting of a bed, desk and bedside table, Draco settled himself on the bed and Connor stood in the middle of the room.  
  
They sat and stood and they stared, they stared because they were both quite good at it. Draco broke the staring competition, "How do you suppose that you get the girl?"  
  
Connor, ever the conversationalist, shrugged. Draco tried again, "Do you have any ideas whatsoever?"  
  
"That's what I came to you for," Connor said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
"What? You expect me to think up a brilliant plan for you to get a girl while you stand there like a Neanderthal? No, it's a give and take situation, I give you take, you give I take," Draco was beginning to wonder if it was worth the pain he was going through talking to the boy.  
  
Connor shuffled his feet and Draco decided to take the lead, "I reckon that the key to this girl is doing something that she likes. Well, something that she likes that you're good at," he then added, "Which appears to be nothing." Under his breath.  
  
"Well, I'm good at killing demons and vampires."  
  
Draco nodded, "Does this girl take that stuff seriously? I mean, does she admire someone when they do that sort of stuff?"  
  
By now Connor was beginning to get his own ideas and decided, as the plan dictated he would, that he didn't need Draco to win over Cordelia. The rusty cogs in Connor's brain began grinding and he said to Draco, "I'm going to win her over by killing a Moranthal demon; I'll show her that I'm better than Dad. Do you think it'll work?"  
  
Draco hid a smile, "Yeah, it would work. But how could you show her that you killed it?"  
  
Connor was on a roll and already thought of what he was going to present to her, "I'm going to chop off its head and show it to her."  
  
It took all of Draco's strength not to fall off the bed laughing at Connor's misguided plan to win over a girl, "That sounds like a good plan. You should do it today now that you have a plan of action, don't wanna waste a second longer."  
  
Connor nodded seriously and showed that the saying 'like father like son' was true and stormed out of the room to try and catch a Moranthal demon. This left Draco alone, smiling evilly in an empty room. It was perfect, Connor was going to make an absolute fool out of himself and everyone would be there to watch it, well, hopefully they would.  
  
Draco got up and slowly left the room in search of much needed food. He was in bad need of a good feed and some coffee.  
  
8 am  
  
After what only could be called a stiff and uncomfortable night's sleep Fred was in the foyer of the Hyperion Hotel doing something along the lines of work rather early. She was upset to tell the truth, she was upset over not only Gunn's insistence that they shouldn't be giving the sons a chance, but also the rift that was coming between them. Gunn's feelings of animosity had multiplied over the last few days as had Fred's admiration and attraction to the three, not only young, but good looking sons.  
  
Fred turned her back to the foyer as she looked at a rather bland article in a physics magazine about the universe, such things had already been written about too much. She slowly turned around, still reading the magazine and yelped when she saw a young man standing on the other side of the counter. It was Ariel, who in Fred's opinion was the most courageous and best looking of the lot. Ariel had obviously come from an entirely different dimension and had more softened and feminine looks than his brother's sharp and gruff looking appearances.  
  
Fred put down her magazine, "Good morning. Did you have a good night?"  
  
"Yes. And yourself?"  
  
Fred shuffled her feet uncomfortably, "Not so good. Well." thus began the internal debate of Fred, should she tell who Gunn constantly referred to as 'the enemy' her relationship problems or should she keep her mouth shut. Ariel was looking at her expectantly, as if knowing what was happening in her head, "Charles and I have been having, uhhhh, problems lately. They just happen to be about your family staying here and all. He just can't cope with the pressure of having, such. colourful house guests."  
  
What no one had yet understood is that when Ariel was giving everyone who didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes death glares, no one realised that he did so for a reason. Ariel could read minds. He came from a dimension where children and adults had mutations to their minds from the nuclear destruction of their world hundreds of years ago. The mutations caused them to be able to read people's minds or talk to animals through their minds or coerce people into doing things or feel other people's emotions or communicate with people who also had these abilities. Ariel had the best of the lot, he could read people's minds from afar, he was a farseeker and a bit of coercive power.  
  
What was everyone thinking when he decided he'd like to kill them? They were thinking ill of the new found family he had only recently acquired. At this moment Ariel knew what her problems with Gunn were about; they were about Fred's defence and liking of him and his family. So what did the evil boy do? He took advantage of the situation in the nicest way possible; he would rid Fred of the infernal ball and chain that is her boyfriend.  
  
Ariel walked up to the counter and leaned on it, "That's not what it's really about, is it? He's jealous that you defended us and that you like us even when he obviously doesn't. The only thing he's stressed about is whether you will choose him or us."  
  
Fred stood gob smacked for a moment and then recovered to deliver the worst lie ever told, "You've got it wrong. Charles just doesn't like having to. share all this room with another vampire like Spike."  
  
Ariel looked at her patronizingly and leaned closer to her, "He's just jealous. There is no reason he shouldn't be at least tolerant of us, he just met us. The thing is that Gunn doesn't want any competition for you; he wants you for himself. He wants you for himself to the extent that he can't stand that you could make your own judgement on people who he doesn't like. Gunn doesn't want you to have your own opinions, and I know that you are an independent person, why should Gunn decide what you do?"  
  
All through his little speech Ariel had Fred hypnotised, he was working his coercive powers, making her think that what he was saying was true and at the same time digging up her insecurities and using them against her. Fred looked down at her feet in defeat as Ariel continued, "You don't need him. It's obvious that he doesn't think along the same level as you. You want to be independent of him and you want to trust more people, but he's holding you back. Fred," she looked up at the boy who could play her emotions and was speaking the truth, "you don't need him. You'd be better off with out him. Gunn is holding you back."  
  
With the last statement Ariel made still ringing in Fred's mind Ariel got up and walked out of the foyer, knowing fully well that Fred was going to do what he wanted her to do. She was going to separate from Gunn.  
  
8:30 am  
  
Wesley got up at eight; was showered by quarter past and had breakfast by eight thirty. He had gotten up with the sole purpose of researching Spike's violent past, trying to find a pattern in his evil doings or at least finding out what kind of trouble that he could cook up. Wes was a still a firm believer that Spike was up to some evil plot to destroy all of man kind, or at least do him in. Ever since his days as the floundering watcher of Faith Wes was scared of some evil plot either being hatched to kill him or the rest of the world as he knew it. What poor Wes didn't know was that no one would need a plan to kill him; it would be easier to do otherwise. But still, he laboured on to try and find an answer.  
  
After what seemed like eternity, and in reality was only fifteen minutes, Wes had ventured out into the hall to find something else to do. Wes was a closet procrastinator. He walked down the hallway which he knew housed Spike and his sons when he realised that he could hear at least two of the sons talking. Wes ventured closer to have an eavesdrop in the name of good. One of the sons, presumably Dally was talking, "Look, we could do it tonight, you know what Dad said, and they all hang around that damn foyer all night. It'd be easy-"  
  
He was cut off by the other boy who was presumably Draco, "But how the hell are we going to get to him if everyone is watching us like a bloody hawk?"  
  
"Easy," the other replied, "we'll just lure 'em out after all is done, shouldn't be too hard."  
  
"Oh, I get you now, after it's all done. That makes sense now."  
  
Wes didn't hear the rest of the conversation as he was already piss bolting down the hall convinced that they had planned to kill them all tonight, to be specific, to kill him. Wes rushed into his room and locked the door to sit down and think about what he was going to do. None of the others knew about this plan, and none of them would believe him.  
  
Wes was just struck with a lightning bolt of genius. He could foil their plan by rushing into the foyer just as the plan was going to be carried out. He imagined it would be like Terminator or Rambo or Die Hard or any other action film of that genre, he would come out with his guns blazing and the evil bastards would go down in a hail of fire, last but not least, he would be the hero. Wes realised that there would be a few problems with his plan, he didn't have a gun, but he could use crossbows and the sort, the only other problem was that he needed to keep his actions limited, as not to rouse suspicion. He would stay in his room all day he decided, to prepare for the coming blood bath and to keep things in check.  
  
Wes decided that he was going to be the hero tonight; he would not let innocent people die if he could stop it. He wasn't going to wimp out; tonight was his night to shine.  
  
8:45 am  
  
Ariel sauntered in to the room he shared with his brothers and sat down on his bed, "So, what's the plan?"  
  
Dally replied, "We need Dad to help us get them all into the foyer at once. That's when we're going to get Connor. I don't know about the others, I think it'll just be too much to be in the same room together, they're gonna have a blow up at each other. It's gonna be so damn funny."  
  
Dally looked at Ariel who was smirking, "What did you do?"  
  
Ariel sat for a moment, "I played with that little Fred girl."  
  
Draco had taken an interest in the conversation and asked with a malicious glint in his eyes, "How exactly did you play with her?"  
  
"She's going to break up with her boyfriend. She's definitely doing it tonight, in the foyer; she couldn't do it unless there was a good enough reason to."  
  
The boys looked at each other, their decision was made without words; tonight was the night that the precious world that the residents of the Hyperion Hotel would come crashing down around their knees.  
  
9:30 am  
  
Angel had been sulking for a good, oh, four or five hours and had found out that he could summarize his entire life in a few paragraphs, or if you don't want to bore readers of said passage out of their minds, one.  
  
As Angel figured he was once a young, drunk and Irish layabout who was good for nothing. He got turned into a vampire went on a giant killing spree for a hundred or so years, the killing spree involved a few dead slayers, a few innocent little girls turned crazy, you know, the usual. Then he got a soul which made him regret everything he had done since he died oh so long ago, found Buffy, a vampire slayer who was his whole reason for redemption or anything even remotely like a life. He turned evil, tried to kill his beloved Buffy and her friends, went to hell, came back good and left the reason for his entire undead existence. And now he could never be with Buffy, his saviour ever again.  
  
His entirely accurate conclusion was that: his life sucked. The worst thing was that it was true. He let the reason for his entire existence go and practically fall into the arms of his nemesis. What bothered him more was that he realised he no longer had Cordy by his side and that he didn't want her; all he could think about was his reignited love for Buffy.  
  
Angel had always thought that ever since he left Sunnydale and had moved on with his life that he could live and find redemption with out Buffy willing him on the whole way. Now that he realised that Buffy wouldn't be eternally his as he had always thought he didn't have a reason for redemption. Buffy was his answer to his life, without her nothing would have been accomplished, nothing would have been done. Angel was lost without Buffy, he was even more lost because she had slept with Spike, the vampire who had tried so earnestly to kill her.  
  
10:15 am  
  
Dust rose up from the dirt that covered the concrete floor of the factory that was the Moranthal demon's lair. Connor stood triumphantly over the demon who he had just beheaded with style and grace. He bent down and picked up the red head which had spikes running along its crown and an ugly squashed up face which resembled that of a collapsed piece of lasagne.  
  
Connor had got his present for Cordy, and now it was time to take it home to wrap it for her. She was going to love it.  
  
11:45 am  
  
Lorne looked up as someone knocked on the door to his room. He called out, "Come in!"  
  
In floated Cordy, the girl who could not put a step wrong when it came to fashion and could stuff up her whole life the second she opened her mouth. "Cordy hon, how are you doing?"  
  
Cordelia sat down on a chair with a sigh, "Angel isn't interested anymore."  
  
Lorne gave her a sympathetic look, "Come on honey, that can't be right. He's had his eyes on you for years. You're just jumping to conclusions."  
  
"No, I'm not. He was so close, and then Spike and his sons came and drove Angel away from me. It's Buffy again, I can tell."  
  
"Angel's just going through a relapse of some sort, after all, he did do some horrible things with Spike when he didn't have a soul."  
  
Cordelia wasn't buying Lorne's comfort, she knew it was Buffy again, "It's Buffy. She's always going to have Angel, no matter how much she hurts him. He's like a little lost puppy, always following Buffy everywhere she goes."  
  
"Isn't that a bit harsh?"  
  
"No. It's the truth Lorne. I'm never going to get Angel, he's always been Buffy's boy and always will be, whether she knows it or not."  
  
Lorne looked at Cordelia who was not going to change her stance, "So, is it time for comfort food?"  
  
Cordelia was not one to be knocked down, she got up, got dressed in some expensive clothes and got going. Her decision was made, "I won't sulk over Angel, that's his job. He's out of my love life and I'm going back on the market."  
  
Lorne sat and watched as Cordelia got out of her chair and stood up to her full height. She walked out of the room with a walk that had not been seen for a good few years. Pining Cordy was gone, it was the return of man hunting Cordy; she wasn't going to get hurt again.  
  
12:30 pm  
  
Dally, Draco and Ariel were sitting in their room when they heard their father next door roll out of bed with a grunt. Unlike most annoying sons though, they didn't rush in to bother him. They sat and waited for him to approach them in his own time. Fifteen minutes after the initial wake up Spike walked into his son's room, "So, what's happening?"  
  
Dally took the lead, "They're all against each other, it's all gonna explode. We've baited Connor and that Fred chick, the rest are all ready in varying states of paranoia."  
  
Spike already knew where all this was going, "You just need them all in the same place at the same time. It can be arranged. They'll be there tonight at nine." Spike walked out of their room and down the hallway, intent on finding some food. He was really hungry.  
  
~**********~  
  
The rest of the day was tediously slow. Fred spent the day listening to Gunn bitch about Spike and his sons, Lorne did what he normally does, Wesley bided his time until the time to strike was right, Spike persuaded Connor with his fists to give Cordy her present in the foyer at nine, Cordelia stalked the streets of LA, Angel brooded and Spike's sons amused themselves with the vulnerable residents of LA.  
  
All was set for tonight's show down. It would all begin with Connor.  
  
8:45 pm  
  
Connor walked down the hallway that led to the foyer of the Hyperion Hotel, holding a box that looked like a birthday present. He had practised what he would say to Cordelia and now all he had to do was give her the present. Spike had told him that Cordelia would be in the foyer at quarter to nine, and as he walked into the foyer, there she was, in all her designer clothed glory.  
  
Connor took a deep breath and walked into the foyer. Cordelia was in behind the counter when he walked in, he cleared his throat so that she would notice him. Cordy looked up really saw only one thing, a male who obviously adored her with a present, and she broke out in a satisfied smile. Of course, Connor took the smile the wrong way, "Hey Cordy."  
  
She smiled at him, "Hey yourself. What are you doing with that present?"  
  
Cordy's warm greeting spurred him on with a new confidence, "Well, it's for you. You see, I like you. I like you more than a friend. And I was wondering if you would be kind enough to accept this present from me. It's sort of a present to show you what I can do and of my affection for you."  
  
Connor offered the present to Cordelia and she gladly took it. She slowly undid the ribbon around it and sat it down on the counter. The lid came off and-  
  
*********  
  
Wesley had been lurking outside the entrance to the foyer. He heard a blood curdling scream and he looked into the window to see Cordelia screaming at a bewildered Connor. Then Spike came downstairs, followed by his sons and soon enough everyone who lived in the Hyperion Hotel, bar Wes, was in the foyer of the Hyperion Hotel. Wes looked at his watch from the light of his torch, it was nine o'clock.  
  
*********  
  
Spike looked into the box that held Connor's present to Cordelia, "Why in God's name did you give her that half decomposed lump of crap?"  
  
Connor wheeled around wide eyed at Spike and then at everyone else. Fred was standing stock still with a shocked look on her face and Gunn was just looking plain bewildered. Lorne was blatantly disgusted at the so called 'present' and Angel was looking somewhat amused. Needless to say that Dally, Draco and Ariel were standing there looking quite proud of themselves.  
  
In the muddled mess that was Connor's head at that exact moment there was one thought which was crystal clear: it was all Draco's fault. "It was all Draco's fault. He told me to get it for her."  
  
All heads swivelled to look at the amused Draco, "If I remember correctly, it was you who came up with the idea of giving her the head."  
  
Connor tried desperately to save face, "You said it was a good idea!"  
  
"I didn't know what her tastes were; you're the one who's so in love with her."  
  
Even though everyone knew it was true, it was still a shock to everyone who was not blonde haired, blue eyed and evil to hear it spoken out loud. Gunn decided it was high time he stepped in, "I reckon it was your fault. You're the one who's so eager to make trouble." He then launched himself at Draco.  
  
The scene that was stock still five seconds ago turned into pandemonium in no time at all. Gunn and Draco were fighting each other while Spike and Angel were trying to pry one off the other, Fred and Cordy were screaming at them to stop fighting, Dally and Ariel were cheering on their brother and Lorne and Connor had took to just watching the situation.  
  
Just then, the glass doors leading into the courtyard burst open. Wes walked in and began firing bolts from a crossbow, he then chucked something on the floor which exploded in a cloud of smoke. He managed not to hurt a living thing in the room, though the walls and floor was looking a bit sorry.  
  
As soon as the smoke had cleared Angel walked up to Wes who was dressed in army pants, a green singlet and had army paint on his face. Wes had struck his I'm-a-hero-look-at-me pose, Angel said to him in a monotone, "What do you think you're doing?"  
  
Wes broke his pose with a puzzled look on his face, "What do you mean? Isn't it obvious? I'm saving you from Spike and his sons; they have plotted all of our deaths."  
  
Gunn got up off the floor, "Wes is right, they probably were." Gunn then chucked a glare over his shoulder at the boys who were now spreading out across the room, ready for what they had been waiting for all along.  
  
Fred strode across the room to him, "Could you stop that for five seconds? All you have done since they've," Fred gestured at the boys with a look of complete anger on her face, "gotten here is accuse them of the worst things. You didn't even give them a chance! They have done nothing to you and yet you act as if they have robbed you of everything you own!"  
  
Gunn was quick to reply, "They're evil! Don't you get it? Spike is a vampire, his sons are inherently evil, and we shouldn't give them chances. They don't deserve to have a chance to kill us."  
  
"Their situation is no different from Angel's and Connor's! Yet they live in our home. Can you really justify your reasons for not liking them?"  
  
Gunn rolled his eyes exasperatedly, "Yes, they are evil."  
  
Fred had had enough of Gunn's narrow mindedness, "If you're going to think that way then I'm leaving you."  
  
Fred got up and walked out of the foyer. Gunn got up to follow her, but Lorne held him back. Everyone turned to Wes who was now standing at the entrance looking embarrassed. Then they all began yelling at each other in complete and total anger, even Angel was having a go. Spike looked across the room at his three sons who were looking at the scene smirking. They caught his eye and they walked out of the foyer and into the garage that housed what a garage usually housed, cars.  
  
Spike walked up to one of the cars, put his elbow through the driver's side window and opened the doors. They all slipped inside the car as Spike hot wired it to get it going. No one said a word until they were on the freeway out of LA. Spike said to his sons mildly, "Now that turned out better than expected."  
  
**********  
  
Meanwhile, back at the Hyperion Hotel.  
  
Angel yelled at the top of his lungs over everyone else, "Shut up! Shut it!" everyone stopped yelling to look angrily at Angel. "Don't you see what they've done? They've turned all of us against each other, that's what they wanted."  
  
Wes looked around the room, "Where'd they go?"  
  
"They left," Angel replied. He then turned around and went to his room to brood over his loss of Buffy a bit more.  
  
As everyone was dispersing to their respective rooms Lorne said, "I still reckon it's a prophecy."  
  
The reply was unanimous, "Shut up Lorne."  
  
A/N: review us! We don't mind getting a bit toasty.  
  
Samantha and Jaime 


	10. Episode 9: Welcome to the Hellmouth

Chapter 12- Welcome to the Hellmouth  
  
It was a relatively 'normal' night in the Summer's household. The Scooby Gang and their respective hangers-on were crowded into the lounge room researching the latest nasty ewwy killer demon thingy. And, well, Oz was there, even though Willow was now, to be frank, gay and had no interest in him. He was there because they were his friends who lived in the town he grew up in; hence, he was there in his full Oz understated cool glory. As I said, they were researching when, all of a sudden there was a giant 'pop!' like a cork in a bottle of champagne except multiplied several hundred times. Xander, of course, said the golden words of truthfulness, "What the hell?"  
  
For, in the Summer's lounge room there was a smug looking Spike and three teenage look-alikes. Needless to say this somewhat freaked out the occupants of the lounge room at that time.  
  
"Shit!" exclaimed Dawn.  
  
Oz merely kept his characteristic cool and raised an eyebrow at both the out of character swearing from Dawn and the four smirking blonde haired blue eyed boys in the room.  
  
"What? How? What?" Buffy said, looking from Spike to the boys.  
  
"Hello Buffy, my dear. How has Sunnydale possibly managed without my presence over the past few days?" said Spike in a falsely concerned voice.  
  
"Spike? Umm. who are they?" Buffy pointed to the three rather smug looking teens.  
  
"Buffy, Scoobies, Andrew, I'd like to introduce you to my three sons, Dally, Draco and Ariel."  
  
Buffy fainted.  
  
Willow went and stood over the unconscious Buffy and said simply, "Oh." She looked around at the rest of the people in the lounge room and shrugged. Andrew knelt down beside Buffy and lightly slapped her.  
  
He looked up at Spike in a disapproving way and said in his whiney voice, "What did you do to her?"  
  
Spike shrugged. Xander walked up to him, determined to get some answers about his sudden arrival, instead, he began to insult him, "How did you, a vampire, have kids? Let alone a girlfriend."  
  
Spike smirked and explained the soap opera twist, "They're also Harmony's kids," he paused as everyone involuntarily shuddered at the thought of the blonde bimbo, "she his them in another dimension, I went and got them. And hey," Spike turned to Xander, "if Angel can have a kid, why can't I?"  
  
While this was going on Dally, Draco and Ariel had been conversing among themselves when Draco, being the womanizer he was, suddenly realized that the room was full of females. He looked around the room and remembered that Spike had said that everyone in this room had been connected romantically with someone else in the room. Draco decided he would have a bit of fun with that. The only woman he wouldn't go after would be Buffy. Draco wasn't as stupid as that dumbass Connor. He knew that you didn't go after your father's girl. It just wasn't to be done. Besides, Draco didn't particularly want to play mind games with the Slayer anyway, too much work, and she could just kick his ass anyway.  
  
Draco took another look around the room and his eyes fell on the short man we all know and love as Oz. But Oz was watching someone else. Draco followed Oz's line of sight and found himself looking at a pretty red-head who Draco felt power radiating off of. Draco smirked evilly; he would be having a fun time at the Summer's household.  
  
Draco tuned back into reality and watched the reactions of the people around him when they heard the usual 'blonde bimbo sent my kids to another dimension.' He saw that Dally was just looking around the room, bored as, he was probably looking for stuff to steal, which he would find lots of. Ariel appeared to be concentrating very hard on something, in particular, the woman with blonde hair (Anya). Draco saw the stranger's faces flash through momentary disbelief and then relax back into normalcy. Draco wondered why they were taking it all so easily, it wasn't every day a situation like this came along.  
  
Across the room, Willow and Andrew were still kneeling over Buffy, who was now stirring. Buffy opened her eyes to see an anxious Andrew and a not too worried Willow. Andrew looked to everyone else excitedly, threw up his hands and cried dramatically, "She's alive!"  
  
Everyone just looked. Dally said, "She was never dead."  
  
Andrew hung his head and looked at a confused Buffy who was sitting up he said in a very small voice, "Oh."  
  
Buffy looked at Spike and his sons, "What are you doing here? And who the hell are they?" she pointed somewhat accusingly at Spike's sons.  
  
Spike sighed and rolled his eyes.  
  
Five minutes later she was sitting on the lounge, rocking back and for, looking as if she were about to cry after Spike had explained everything again. "You had three kids with Harmony," said Buffy, her voice shaking with unshed tears.  
  
Draco suddenly felt very sorry for the Slayer, "Umm.are you okay?" he asked sincerely.  
  
"Who the hell do you think you are?!" Buffy shrieked, "Don't talk to me!"  
  
The Scoobies looked at each other. Giles spoke up, "Buffy, I think we need to talk."  
  
Buffy turned to Giles, still teary eyed and said, "What do we need to talk about?"  
  
Giles looked at Spike and his sons uncomfortably, "Just a few things." He got up and left the room, with Buffy following him like a little lost lamb.  
  
Spike looked at Dawn, Xander, Anya, Willow and Andrew, "So, who's in charge now that the Slayer has finally lost it?"  
  
They looked around at each other and shrugged. Oz stepped towards them and said, "I am."  
  
Everyone looked at him in surprise. Oz began to feel uncomfortable and shrugged, "Well none of you were volunteering to do it."  
  
Spike snorted, "So, little wolf-man wants to lead eh?"  
  
"Oz, are you sure about this?" asked Willow.  
  
Xander answered for him, "Well Willow, we could always let Captain Peroxide here lead," Spike's sons tried to cover their laughter unsuccessfully, "but that's sure to turn out bad."  
  
"What's wrong with me in the lead? And, by the way, isn't it obvious that the hair is natural?" Spike gesture towards his rather bored sons.  
  
There was a derisive snort from all. Draco took a step forward, "So, we're bunking down here. Who's going to show me to my room?" he turned to Willow with a cheeky look on his face.  
  
Andrew realized that he was about to be ripped off a room, "Hey! How come he gets a room and I'm still a hostage?"  
  
Oz turned to him and said, "Because."  
  
"Because why?" replied Andrew.  
  
"Because I said so."  
  
"Besides," cut in Anya, "I thought you considered yourself 'guestage.'"  
  
Andrew pouted and walked into the kitchen and sulked.  
  
"Well? Isn't anyone going to get us food?" asked Dally, looking around.  
  
"They're exactly like you Spike," said Dawn, "I love them!"  
  
Spike looked down at the too stupid and overexcited Dawn and rolled his eyes.  
  
But meanwhile.  
  
Giles took Buffy into the kitchen and immediately began grilling her, "What was that out there?" he asked tersely.  
  
Buffy looked at him blankly. She asked ignorantly, "What was what?"  
  
Giles was building himself into an irate state and replied, "What was that crying and screaming fit you just had over a vampire?"  
  
"I did not!" Buffy appeared to have no recollection of what had just happened.  
  
"Are you stupid?!" Giles exclaimed angrily, "You just fainted, woke up, started crying and shouted down a guest in your house. And you're telling me that you did not?"  
  
Buffy eyed Giles suspiciously, "Is this something about Spike?"  
  
"Yes this is bloody well about Spike! He told you he had three sons and you fainted. Then he explained it again and you freaked out. Buffy Anne Summers, are you in love with Spike?"  
  
"Uhhh."  
  
"Hi Buffy!" Andrew piped up, "Hi Mr. Giles!"  
  
They looked at him. Buffy and Giles hadn't realized that Andrew was in the kitchen. "So buffy, you're in love with Spike?"  
  
"Umm."  
  
Back in the lounge room, everyone had dug up some damn good (note: sarcasm) karaoke. Ariel was in the middle of the room, singing his heart out, "I been to Hollywood/ I been to Redwood/ I been a miner for a heart of gold."  
  
Everyone seemed to be getting into it, except two sullen, blonde haired males standing in the corner. Dally and Draco watched their brother make an absolute mockery out of himself while Dawn watched on, drooling. Spike was having a good belly laugh, Willow was giggling and Oz was preparing himself for his moment of glory. Draco looked at Dally and said, "Do you think they'll notice if we drag out a bit of alcohol?"  
  
Dally replied nonchalantly, "No, they'll probably join in."  
  
Draco smirked and went in search of liquor with his older brother.  
  
The two went up stairs and started searching through the bedrooms. In one they found a case of beer and in another there were two bottles of wine. Dally and Draco took the grog and then snuck down to the basement. That was there they hit the jack pot. Down in the basement there were six bottles of whiskey, three of port and another case of beer. Dally and Draco grinned and took all of the alcohol they found back into the lounge room. Buffy, Giles and Andrew had returned to the rest of the group and Buffy was now singing a love song which had apparently been dedicated to Angel which would explain why Spike was looking so pissed off. Dawn saw the two blonde arrive in the room carrying alcohol, "BEER!" Dawn screamed, "They've got beer, give me beer!"  
  
Buffy looked at Dawn, alarmed and with wide eyes, "Since when did you drink beer?"  
  
Dawn looked around, shifting from one foot to the other. She replied slowly, "Since.uhh.a party! Yeah, a party I went to." Buffy stared her down, knowing that Dawn had never been to such a party as she always hung around the Scoobies. Dawn sighed, defeated and confessed her sins, "I've liked beer ever since I found a case of it in your room."  
  
Everyone turned to Buffy, watching the family soap opera. Buffy tried to deny her love of beer, "I don't drink alcohol, I don't need it." This unfortunately went on for some time, with Dawn accusing and Buffy denying until, Buffy broke her denial, with a scream, and "I'm an alcoholic!"  
  
"Join the club," said Willow.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Buffy, you're telling me you haven't noticed? Everyone in this household is a closet alcoholic. I am, you are, Dawn is. Hell, even Andrew is."  
  
"Alrighty," called out Draco, "Since you're all alcos it's okay to drink, so I say we all get mind numbingly drunk."  
  
"That's my boy, you're Spike to the core," Spike said proudly.  
  
"Okay since I have now been made leader of the group," said Oz, "I say we go with Draco's idea of getting drunk and then singing karaoke."  
  
A/N: the story is now in the hands of our crazy and completely nonsensical imaginations. Since nobody (except one wonderful person) likes this story, it shall go wherever we want it to, so no complaints. (by the way, it's not pencil gal who's talking to you, it's ginger ninja! Mwahahahahaha!!) 


	11. Episode 10: Why did they do it?

Chapter 13- Why did they do it?  
  
The next morning greeted the occupants of the Summer's house with a nice cheery burst of sunlight which was met with groans of regret. The night before, for some was a complete blur, and for others it was crystal clear and quite cringe worthy. This applied to Ariel, who had managed to fall asleep on the front lawn after Dawn had tried to 'save the flowers from the nasty vampires who step all over them.'  
  
Inside, Draco and Dally were enjoying Xander's cries of shock at the piercing he had recently acquired to both of his eyebrows and his nose; what he hadn't found yet was the nice tattoo he had on his leg of Angel. Indeed, it had been a wicked night.  
  
Oz, who was asleep in the Summer's living room clutching a beer bottle to his chest as if it were a teddy bear, woke up with cries of, "Mama! Mama!" Willow, still half drunk replied,  
  
"Wherefore art thou Mama, Deny thy father and refuse thy name, But if thou wilt not Be but sworn her love And she'll no longer be a Summers."  
  
Giles, who had thrown up and recovered rather speedily from his own hang over walked into the room as the two said this and surveyed the damage that last night's drinking party had caused. He shook his head forlornly, and walked out of the lounge room to prepare breakfast for the rather hung over, as Xander likes to put it, party weasels.  
  
The people in the lounge room began to stir and wake up with groans and splitting headaches. Ariel wandered in with grass through his hair and on his creased and rumpled clothes. Dawn followed looking similarly disheveled, except she had a grass stain on the side of her face. Eventually everyone was awake, although they were still quite foggy headed, and were looking at each other, some of them embarrassed, and some of them just plain dazed. Giles walked in, his clothes clean and uncreased, his hair brushed and with all the sleep out of his eyes. He looked at them quite sternly and said, "Why did you do it?"  
  
Buffy, Xander, a half-drunk Willow and Spike looked at him in confusion, while the others looked at their feet, ashamed. Buffy looked at them with a frown on her face and voiced the thoughts of the utterly confused, "Why did we do what?"  
  
"Are you drunk Rupert?" asked Spike, "We didn't do anything."  
  
"You did quite a lot actually, William. And I'm not drunk."  
  
"Huh?" said Willow, "C'mon Giles what did we do?"  
  
"Well Willow, just this morning as Oz was waking up you began quoting Shakespeare, dare I say incorrectly in your drunken slur. Spike fell asleep outside before dawn and if I hadn't dragged him in here he would be dust, not to mention the swinging from the lights. Xander I guessed you noticed the piercing but on your leg there is a tattoo of Angel," Xander looked at his leg and let out a girly squeal, "and Buffy, you. You slept with one of Spike's sons; I'm not sure which one it was."  
  
Spike looked as if he was about to cry when Giles said that and looked towards his three sons.  
  
Spike's sons looked at each other and ran the one place that was safe; outside. Spike watched them go and walked down to the basement to sulk, Angel style. Buffy looked at her feet, jumped up and raced after him. The rest of them with the exception of Willow shrugged, used to the melodrama that surrounded them and walked off, leaving a drunken Willow by herself, "What just happened?"  
  
Down in the basement.  
  
Spike stormed down the stairs, paused and saw that the fold out bed that was his was still set up, with the sheets neatly made. He sat down and put his head in his hands. His head snapped up when he heard Buffy reach the bottom of the stairs. Spike shook his head slowly and said in a disappointed voice, "Why'd you do it?"  
  
Buffy looked at her hands and answered, "I did it because I wanted to make you jealous," she took a big breath to prepare her for what she would say next, "Giles made me realize something. he made me realize that I love you."  
  
Spike looked up at her, surprised. He jumped up, walked over to her and threw his arms around her, he finally said, "All is forgiven. I, too, am in love. with you." Buffy looked at him with an overly happy, serene look on her face and he continued, "But that son of mine will be getting a big bloody piece of my mind."  
  
"Are you sure you want to know which one it was?"  
  
"Yes I do. They knew I loved you but they did it anyway. They deserve punishment."  
  
Buffy took a deep breath, "I had sex with Dally."  
  
Spike looked shocked beyond belief. 'No! It can't be,' he thought, 'my favourite son. How could he do this to me? He's worse than that idiot Connor; he's more of a bad ass than me. This can't be possible.'  
  
"Spike? Spike!" Buffy snapped at him, breaking him out of his reverie, "Are you going to be all right?"  
  
Spike nodded dully, "I'll be right love." He began walking back upstairs and said, "I'll talk to you later my darling Goldilocks."  
  
Buffy sighed and said to the empty basement, "He's so damn gorgeous."  
  
"Buffy, how could you?" Buffy spun around and saw Dawn crawling out from under Spike's bed. "Buffy, why did you do it? You knew I was in love with Spike but then you come down here claiming you love him and steal him away from me. I hate you, you heartless bitch. You're not my sister."  
  
Buffy looked at her righteously and blinked disbelievingly and said to her, "Do you really want to pick a fight with me? The slayer?"  
  
Dawn stalked over to her and said threateningly, "No, I don't." With that she flicked her long and dirt streaked hair in Buffy's face and walked up the stairs and out of the basement.  
  
Anyhow, Spike's sons were having a tad bit more fun, out in the sunshine and let lose on the hellmouth and all.  
  
They walked hurriedly down the street, the three of them in line with one another. Draco looked at his hapless brothers and said to Ariel, "You've got a ton of grass in your hair." Ariel immediately began o retrieve bits of grass from his hair.  
  
Ariel asked innocently, "Where are we gonna go?"  
  
Draco, who wasn't in the best of moods, said shortly, "Somewhere."  
  
Ariel stopped longingly at a park and motioned for them to sit on either the swings or the bench. Draco watched as his younger brother went and sat on the swing and as soon as Dally sat himself down on the bench, Draco began to have a go at him, "What did you do it for? You know that Buffy's Spike's girl."  
  
"We were both drunk, what do you expect?" Dally replied defensively.  
  
"I was drunk last night too, but did I sleep with someone? Nooo."  
  
Dally just looked at him as if it were a crime not to sleep with someone whilst drunk. Draco just rolled his eyes, "Look, I'm going back to the house. I really suggest that you don't go back for a few hours," he turned to Ariel who appeared to be having the time of his life on the swing, "Ariel, do whatever you want."  
  
Ariel looked up momentarily, nodded and was again caught up in the wonders of the swing. Draco then walked back to 1630 Revello Drive, not once looking back to see what his brothers were going to do. Draco found Spike sitting in the kitchen talking to Andrew about onion flowers while Andrew was baked a funnel cake.  
  
"Draco," said Spike, "Where's Dallas?"  
  
"How did you know it was Dally?"  
  
"Buffy told me."  
  
Draco nodded, "I just left him and Ariel sitting in Wetherill Park. I don't know how long they'll stay there for." Spike just nodded dejectedly.  
  
-----  
  
Ariel looked at Dally, who had gotten up and was walking around. Dally turned to Ariel with a thoughtful look on his face, "I know where we can go."  
  
Ariel asked eagerly, "Where?"  
  
Dally smirked and replied, "We can go to the fair." He then began to walk down the street.  
  
It took Ariel a couple of second to disentangle himself from the swing. He then asked, "What's a fair?"  
  
Dally sighed and rolled his eyes, "I'll show you when we get there."  
  
"Hey Dally! Wait up;" called Ariel as he ran to catch up, "What's a fair? Come on, tell me."  
  
-----  
  
Draco walked out into the backyard and found the cute little red-head sitting on one of the lawn chairs. He sat down next to her and said, "Hey there. Willow right?"  
  
"Yeah. What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be down in the basement training with Spike or something?"  
  
"Nah. He's still screwed about Dally sleeping with Buffy," he paused, "You know, I could really get used to it here. I mean it's better than where I was, bloody Lucius. I only had two good things going for me. Being Head Boy at school, and who the Head Girl was."  
  
Willow looked at him sympathetically, "What's so special about the Head Girl? Did you love her or something?"  
  
"I think I do. But enough about me. What's your story? Where's the wonderful love of your life?"  
  
"She was murdered."  
  
Draco was confused and a bit shocked about the revelation that she was gay, "But what about wolf-boy in there?"  
  
"Oz? We used to go out years ago but that was it. And how did you know he was a werewolf?"  
  
"I used to be taught by one."  
  
"Oh. Well, could we not talk about me? Tell me about this wonderful Head Girl of yours."  
  
Draco grinned, "She's great. Smart, beautiful, funny. Her name's Hermione Granger."  
  
Suddenly there was a flash similar to lightning and a young woman with bushy hair stood up as if she was just thrown to the ground. "HERMIONE?!" shrieked Draco.  
  
"Hermione?!" shrieked Harry Potter and Ron Weasely. They continued their rather girly shrieking, "Hermione!"  
  
"Where is she?" asked Harry, "She just disappeared. NOOO!!"  
  
A/N: we now have no control over what happens in the story. You have been warned. 


	12. Episode 11: The beauty of subplots

A/N: we're still writing this damn thing even though no one likes it. Read it mindlessly.  
  
Chapter 14 - The Beauty of Subplots  
  
Ariel ran around the fair in utter ecstasy, looking at the flashing lights and, for most of them, the fluoro coloured fluffy toys. Ariel's excitement was not helped by the fact that he had congested a dangerously high amount of sugar. Dally looked on at Ariel condescendingly as he let out a loud high pitched, "Yippee!" as he went around on the merry-go-round.  
  
Dally walked around to the exit of the merry-go-round to greet Ariel as he hopped off. Ariel ran up to Dally with a huge smile on his face and asked, "So, what are we gonna do next? Oh! Can we go on the Ferris wheel? Please? Please? Pretty please?"  
  
Dally narrowed his eyes at Ariel, "Like hell. There is absolutely no way that we are getting on the bloody Ferris wheel. If you want to stay at the fair then we're getting on the roller coaster. If you're gonna sulk about the Ferris wheel then we'll go back to Revello Drive."  
  
"Oooh, goodie, a roller coaster!" Ariel squealed in a very babyish voice. Dally rolled his eyes and followed the excitable blonde.  
  
---------------  
  
Hermione Granger looked around her and settled her eyes on Draco. "Draco?" she asked confused. She looked at Willow and asked, "Who are you? Where am I? Draco?"  
  
Draco looked at Hermione with disbelief, he walked over to her and said slowly, "Well, I don't know what you're doing here, but, well, you're in Sunnydale California."  
  
Willow and Draco looked at the stunned Hermione waiting for her to register the fact that she was no longer at school in England. Hermione paled as she realised what Draco had just said was true, she looked around and said faintly, "I think I need to sit down." She then promptly fainted.  
  
"Shit! Hermione!" Draco ran over to her and kneeled down. He began searching his clothes for his wand but couldn't find it. Willow waved her hand and Hermione lifted off the ground. Draco looked up shocked. He stared at Willow and thought, 'I was right, Willow's power-girl.'  
  
Hermione began to float towards the house with Willow and Draco following her. Willow placed Hermione on the lounge and let out a breath.  
  
"How the hell did you do that?" asked Draco.  
  
"Well you see you know how I said my girlfriend was murdered? Well what had happened I went super bad ass Wicca girl and I tried to destroy the world. Giles took me back to England and I learnt to control all the power I had."  
  
Draco nodded understanding. He turned back to Hermione, "Mione'll be alright won't she?"  
  
"She'll be fine. She'll wake up soon then we will try to explain everything to her."  
  
A rather non plussed Giles walked into the lounge room and saw a strange girl unconscious on the lounge. As Willow got up to explain Giles held up a hand to stop her and said, "I'm not going to ask, I already know that it has something to do with him." Giles turned and pointed at Draco who looked at him evenly. Giles took a sip of his coffee and looked at Willow and then the girl on the lounge and walked out.  
  
Giles went to find Xander, yes, Xander of all people with a hope to either assuage or confirm his fear that Spike's ons were pure evil and wanted to kill them all in a bloody massacre. Either way Giles found Xander and Anya in the kitchen of the Summers house.  
  
"Alexander Lavelle Harris, you are the most arrogant conceited dickhead I've ever met!" Anya screamed.  
  
"I am not! Spike lives under this roof as well!" Xander retorted so very eloquently.  
  
"I HATE YOU!"  
  
"I HATE YOU!"  
  
And of course the passionate kiss ensued.  
  
Giles dropped his coffee cup, turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen while throwing his hands in the air and muttering, "This house is going to the bleeding dogs."  
  
--------------  
  
In the Hyperion Hotel everyone was either brooding, or well, brooding. Wesley was sitting in the foyer in a vain attempt to keep Angel Investigations operating whilst brooding. The phone rang and Wes jumped up to answer it eagerly with a bouncy, "Hello, Angel Investigations, how can I help you? Oh, hello Giles, what is happening?"  
  
On the other end a very exasperated Giles explained the situation. This was the whole 'Spike's sons are trying to kill us all in a bloody massacre and they have brainwashed everyone here.' And the response? The decision to launch a complex military operation to bring down the blonde haired blue eyed evil people.  
  
---------------  
  
"Harry, we have to go see Dumbledore," said Ron.  
  
"You're right. Something bad has happened. What if Voldemort has her?"  
  
"C'mon let's go!" The two began running higgly piggly to Dumbledore's office, "Acid pops!" Ron yelled and they ran up the stairs.  
  
"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry called.  
  
"Yes Harry? Ron?"  
  
"Sir, it's Hermione, she disappeared, and we have to save her."  
  
"Ms Granger is perfectly fine."  
  
Some time later.  
  
Harry and Ron looked at each other then back at Dumbledore, "Thanks Professor," they said in unison. They left Dumbledore's office and when they arrived back in the Entrance Hall Harry said, "There's something wrong. I'm Harry Potter. It's my job to save people and Hermione needs saving."  
  
"And I'm Ronald Weasley. I'm your side-kick and I'll follow you into danger every time."  
  
"Let's go."  
  
---------------  
  
An old homeless lady peered out into the dark night, waiting for two particular people who could change the world. The lady jumped to her feet as she heard two sets of footsteps approach the entrance to her alley. She crouched down as she waited for the two blonde-haired boys to pass her. As soon as they passed she began following them very loudly and clumsily. Before they'd gone two blocks the two blonde-haired boys knew from their extensive training that someone was following them. The rounded a corner and-WHAM! Dally had the old lady pinned against the wall of a building.  
  
Dally initially looked shocked to find that the person who was following them was an old lady but quickly recovered and asked her, "What are you doing following us?"  
  
The old lady looked defiantly at Dally and answered, "I am Meriath and I am here to recruit you; to make you join our order."  
  
Dally and Ariel looked confused, but Ariel was overcome by curiosity and asked, "What order?"  
  
Meriath looked at him incredulously, "Don't you know? The Order of the Phoenix."  
  
"The Order of what?"  
  
"The phoenix. But where is the other?"  
  
"Other? Other what?"  
  
"The other boy, you're brother."  
  
"You mean Draco?"  
  
"Yes, now where is he? All three of you need to begin your training for the Order."  
  
"You still haven't explained what this order is."  
  
"Take me to your brother. He will understand what I'm talking about. He will be able to explain it to you."  
  
---------------  
  
Wesley looked around the foyer of the Hyperion Hotel, his eyes resting on Angel, Lorne, Fred, Connor and Cordelia, "I'm glad you all came just like I asked you to. I know that it has been quite a tense time since Spike and his spawn of evil have left us, but we need to take some action." He looked at the Fang Gang assembled in front of him and continued with his rather stiff and British speech, "Spike and his spawn of evil, who from now on shall be code named 'evil' have reached Sunnydale. Giles has made a may day call and is requesting our immediate help." Wesley then produced a map of LA's road ways which led to Sunnydale and positioned it on a stand, he then produced a cane. With his map and cane in hand Wes straightened up and looked at them harshly, "We are here," he pointed his cane at LA, "and we need to be here," Wes then pointed at Sunnydale. "Tomorrow we will set out at 10:00 PM sharp and will meet with Giles on the outskirts of town. From there we will work out how to bring down evil. Any questions?"  
  
There were no questions for Commander Wes-the-British-toff.  
  
Wes nodded and said, "Go gather your things and prepare to make me proud."  
  
---------------  
  
"Psst! Cordy," Fred whispered.  
  
Cordelia looked around and saw Fred gesturing to her, "Come on Cordy, quickly."  
  
Cordy followed Fred into a room and looked at her, "What's wrong? What do you need me for?"  
  
"Cordy we have to do something. We can't let the others kill Spike and the boys which is what I bet they want to do. We have to try and stop them, but how?"  
  
"Oh, I know. We could pretend that we agree with Wesley and then we get to Sunnydale and tell Spike what's going on."  
  
"You mean, bring them down from the inside?"  
  
"That's exactly what I mean."  
  
"Excellent," said Fred in a very Bill and Ted kind of way.  
  
---------------  
  
Hermione Granger awoke on the lounge of some stranger's home. She got up to have a look around but was interrupted when Draco came into the room, "Hermione, you're awake! How are you feeling?"  
  
Hermione smiled half heartedly at him and replied, "I'm fine, I'd be better if I knew where I am and what I'm doing here."  
  
"Well, you see-"  
  
Draco's reply was cut off by Spike dragging two of his very disgruntled sons in by the ear, followed by Meriath. Spike sat them down on the lounge, ignoring Hermione's wide eyed stares. Spike then rounded on Dally, "What did you think you were doing and what do you think you are doing?"  
  
Dally looked at him in disbelief, "What do you mean by 'what am I doing?'"  
  
"Bringing home old ladies, you don't go around chatting up old married ladies."  
  
Ariel started cacking himself and Dally looked out right murderous. Hermione turned to Draco slowly and said to him amidst the family argument, "Why are there three people who look exactly like you?"  
  
"I'll take you outside and explain properly." Hermione nodded, still wide eyed and let herself be led to the porch.  
  
---------------  
  
"Okay, I get it now," said Hermione as she and Draco walked back into the lounge room. The looked at the group assembled there. Spike, the father; Dally and Ariel, the brothers; Buffy, the slayer; Giles the watcher; Xander the Illustrated Man; Anya the ex-demon; Dawn the cry-baby; Andrew the funnel cake lover; Willow the ex-evil wiccan; Oz the werewolf and an old lady named.  
  
"Meriath?!" Draco and Hermione yelled together.  
  
"Hello Draco," said Meriath, "How are you Hermione? You understand what's going on?"  
  
"Um, yeah, everything except why you're here."  
  
"Well, I'm here to recruit you, Draco and Hermione, as well as Ariel and Dally."  
  
Spike got up and said to Meriath, "What do you mean you want to recruit my bloody sons? Why the hell would you want the silly buggers?"  
  
Draco glanced briefly at his father and then did a double take as he took in his father's bloody nose, cut lip and over all dishevelled appearance, "What the hell happened to you?"  
  
"Dally and I settled our differences," Spike gestured to Dally who was looking similarly dishevelled, bruised and bloody.  
  
"Hem hem," Meriath said in an Umbridge sort of way, "Family problems aside, I need to recruit these boys, and the lovely lady for out most noble cause. So what do you say? Will you join?"  
  
The three boys looked at each other and Dally answered for them, "No."  
  
"What?!" shrieked Hermione, "Draco, you're not really saying no to the Order are you?"  
  
Draco looked at her, "No I'm not. The Order needs us." Draco turned to Dally and Ariel and said, "You guys can say no if you want but I'm not." Finally he turned to Meriath, "Hermione and I will join."  
  
"Hem hem, wonderful," she replied.  
  
"Meriath, where's Dumbledore?" asked Hermione. "Shouldn't he be here?"  
  
"Ah, well you see, Dumbledore has decided to take a holiday."  
  
Hermione frowned, "He took a holiday? Where on earth to?"  
  
"Oh, he went to Disneyland." All the people in the lounge room made 'oh's' of understanding, even if the world were about to end, anyone would take the time to go to Disneyland.  
  
Draco turned to his brothers, "So, are you boys joining?"  
  
Ariel's eyes brightened as he asked, "What do we get if we join?"  
  
Meriath answered, "Well, you will be coming to England, free accommodation, travel and you might even get some fairy floss."  
  
"That's it, I'm in," Ariel decided rashly, only joining for the promise of fairy floss.  
  
Dally sighed in defeat, "I guess I'm joining as well."  
  
"That's excellent, we-"  
  
Spike interrupted Meriath, "Wait, I won't have my sons running off to sodding England with some poncy order. I got them out of their crappy universes and they're staying with me, here, in Sunnydale."  
  
Andrew leant over to Xander, Anya and Dawn on the couch and asked, "Do you want me to make some pop corn to watch the show with?"  
  
"Yes please," replied Xander.  
  
"Meriath, why do we need to go back to England?" asked Hermione, trying to keep everyone calm.  
  
"Hermione's right," said Draco, "Voldemort isn't going to stay in Britain and there's no way I'm going anywhere near Lucius."  
  
"But Draco, Lucius is your father," Meriath calmly replied.  
  
"No he's not. Spike is. And why do you want me to go back to him when you know he's a deatheater? You know very well that he's Voldemort's right hand man."  
  
"Hem, hem. Draco the Order of the Phoenix needs spies in the dark lord's army."  
  
"Like hell it does," Draco yelled extremely pissed off. "Snape is a spy, you don't need me. I will never join Voldemort for whatever reason. I few have to go back to England to join the order then I'm not going."  
  
Meriath folded her arms and pouted, "Fine then, you can't be in the Order then."  
  
Hermione pouted also and replied haughtily, "If Draco's not joining, then I'm not."  
  
Ariel and Dally stood up, crossed their arms and said in unison, "And neither are we."  
  
"Fine then, you shall suffer the wrath of me, the-wait. You'll suffer the wrath of-wait, no, they don't do that, damn," Meriath paused and looked around for inspiration, she picked up a pen, "You shall suffer the wrath of the pen! You will cower and run and hide and wish you were never born. All because of the pen!"  
  
Oz stood up, "Could you just leave now?"  
  
Meriath blinked and moved towards the front door but stuck her head around the doorway, "You are not getting your pen back."  
  
Spike stood up and smirked, "So, what are we gonna do now?"  
  
Xander answered, "Well, we could-"  
  
But his answer was cut short by Wesley, decked in ninja clothes that crashed through the living room window with a karate kick, a karate yell and a pair of Mutant Ninja Turtles nun chucks.  
  
Angel and Gunn jumped in next to him and all three took up ninja stances. Fred and Cordy walked up to the window and said, "Umm, we'll take the door."  
  
Wes, Angel and Gunn began swinging their nun chucks around violently. Draco and Hermione began o feel a bit worried as Wes, Angel and Gunn were walking towards them. As one they pulled out their wands and yelled, "Stupefy!" Two red jets of light hit Angel and Gunn in the chest and they fell on the ground stiff as boards. Draco didn't see Wes coming but Hermione did and jumped in front of Draco. She yelled, "Stupefy!" just in time. Wes and the nun chuck froze just as the nun chuck was about to hit Hermione's cheek.  
  
Draco and Hermione turned to Red and Cordelia, wands a t the ready. Fred and Cordelia held up their hands and Fred hurried to say something, "Hey, hey, hey, don't look at us. They're the ones who want you dead." She nodded towards the three stiff bodies on the floor.  
  
"Oh, and him," Cordy added and threw her head towards Giles.  
  
Buffy stalked towards Giles, "Why Giles? You're trying to kill Spike again. Why, why? Why do you hat me so much? Why?" Buffy collapsed on the ground bawling her eyes out. Giles was about to pounce on Dally but Spike hit him square in the jaw. Giles hit his head on the wall and was knocked unconscious. Again.  
  
"Tie them up," said the self-appointed leader Oz.  
  
---------------  
  
Xander paced up and down the basement, waiting for Spike to get back from his break.  
  
"Could you stop doing that?" asked Gunn.  
  
Angel chipped in as well, "Yeah, you know that pacing is as clichéd as you can get."  
  
Xander narrowed his eyes, "Do you really want me to show you the tattoo again?"  
  
Angel shuddered, "God no."  
  
"Oh come on. You're a vampire, be brave, you can handle it," said Wes.  
  
Giles rolled his eyes, "You obviously haven't seen the tattoo yet."  
  
"No, but I'm sure it's not that bad."  
  
Angel replied defensively, "You try having yourself tattooed on a guy's leg."  
  
"So, what are the little chickens up to now?" Spike sauntered into the basement with a smirk on his face.  
  
"Well we're being bored to death by pacing man here," Gunn tried his best to gesture to the still moving Xander only using his head.  
  
Spike leant into Gunn's face and gave him a smug smile, "Well after this you're not going to be bored."  
  
---------------  
  
Dawn walked down into the basement where Spike was getting ready to torture Angel a bi more by telling him more things about his precious Buffykins.  
  
"Hiya Spikey," Dawn said, trying to be flirtatious.  
  
"Hey pigeon. You come down to see the wonderful hair-gel-head being tortured to the point of insanity?"  
  
"Only if you're going to torture him," Dawn batted her eyelashes at Spike.  
  
"DAWN DUSK SUMMERS!" Buffy's voice came down the stairs and was followed by Buffy herself stampeding down the rickety stair case.  
  
"Get away from my man," Buffy said in a very western movie kind of way.  
  
"And what are you gonna do if I don't?" Dawn stepped in front of Spike and folded her arms.  
  
"This," Buffy pushed Dawn to the ground, ran to Spike and hugged him tightly. Spike held her and smiled maliciously at Angel over Buffy's head. Angel gasped then fainted.  
  
---------------  
  
Meanwhile upstairs Andrew, Anya, Oz, Willow, Draco, Dally, Ariel, Hermione, Fred and Cordelia were upstairs playing a huge game of twister. Andrew spun the roulette and said to Anya, "Right hand red."  
  
With a thump, Anya was out of the game. She got up and sat down next to Xander on the lounge, who said to her, "Welcome to the land of the inflexible people."  
  
Anya replied, "I'm not inflexible, it's just everyone else, mucking up my concentration."  
  
"Sure it is honey, sure it is."  
  
Andrew watched the mass of twisted up people with a smile of pleasure, "You know, it's so good that we're doing something so wholesome and fun together. I reckon that this is a change for good, no more drunken-"  
  
Dally, who was in extreme pain growled at him, "Spin the damn thing before I break your face."  
  
"Okay, okay," whined Andrew. He spun, "Left foot blue."  
  
"Aargh!" Dally came crashing down bringing Fred along with him.  
  
Dally landed on top of Fred and said, "Hey there cutie." Fred got up and sat down on the lounge and blushed.  
  
"Okay Draco," said Andrew, "Left hand green."  
  
Draco moved and found himself looking straight down at Hermione, "Uh, hey there Granger," he said with a slight pink tinge in his cheeks.  
  
"Malfoy, are you blushing?"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Hermione, right hand yellow." Hermione tried to move but hit Draco instead. The two of them rolled off the plastic and Hermione ended up on top of Draco.  
  
Andrew looked at them over the top of his roulette board and said in his nasal voice, "I think you two may be out."  
  
Dally looked at him condescendingly and said, "No, they're not."  
  
"Well actually-"  
  
Xander decided that it was time to step in and said, "Shut up."  
  
Suddenly, everyone's attention was turned towards the voice outside. "Oh my lord, I never thought we'd get here. Hello? Anybody home?"  
  
Oz, the leader, spoke up, "Yeah, come in."  
  
In burst Lorne and a very bedraggled looking Connor to find a lounge room full of people either staring at them or playing twister. As Connor spied Cordelia playing twister with Ariel, Oz and Willow he thought, 'This is the true definition of Hell.'  
  
A/N: hey, no body reads this thing anyway so I (not pencil gal this time, it's the author formerly known as ginger ninja, Broadway Betty) get to say whatever the hell I want. So, review this damn thing, even if you think it's the worst piece of writing on the earth, just review it. If you flame us though, we will extract revenge on you, a rather painful and embarrassing revenge I assure you. And the reason we keep on posting this thing? We have fun writing it; maths is so much brighter thanks to something else.  
  
Apart from that Pencil Gal and I (Broadway Betty) are claiming rights on the use of twister as a romance fuelling plot bunny, we encourage others to use it, but we came up with the idea of it; we'd just like you to acknowledge that fact. 


	13. Episode 12: Coming and going

Chapter 15 - Coming and Going  
  
Harry, Ron, Sirius and Remus were walking down Revello Drive. "Do you two know where you're going?" Remus asked Harry and Ron.  
  
"Yep," Harry replied. "We just have to find number 1630."  
  
"And here we are," said Sirius as they stopped in front of a house.  
  
They walked up to the door and knocked. The door opened and they were shocked to see who was behind it.  
  
"Scarhead?!"  
  
"Ferretface?!"  
  
"Draco who's at the door?" Hermione joined Draco at the door and was immediately stunned. "Harry? Ron? Sirius? Remus? What are you guys doing here?"  
  
"We're here to rescue you Hermione," said Ron.  
  
"I'm not really in dire need of rescuing," answered Hermione.  
  
Harry said to her matter-of-factly, "You're not with us, therefore you need rescuing."  
  
"That is the problem with you two, you never stop to think that I might have a spine of my own," Hermione said exasperated.  
  
Draco then jumped in, "What makes you think she's in trouble anyway Pothead? If Hermione were in trouble she's more than capable of getting out of it herself."  
  
As soon as Harry opened his mouth to reply the three boys exploded into an all-out brawl. Remus and Sirius let them be, wandering into the lounge room to find Cordelia, Ariel, Dally and Connor enthralled in a huge fight of their own with Andrew, Xander and Anya on the lounge watching them.  
  
Remus and Sirius just looked at each other. They turned around in alarm as Buffy, Spike and Dawn burst into the lounge room with Spike roaring, "What the hell is going on?!"  
  
Everyone stopped moving. "Draco let go of them," Spike commanded.  
  
"But-"  
  
"No buts." Draco let them go and went to stand next to Hermione.  
  
"Dally, Ariel," Spike continued, "2-on-1 isn't a fair fight, you should know better than that. Let him go."  
  
Dally and Ariel sighed and dropped Connor on the floor.  
  
"Now would anyone care to explain what the hell is going on?"  
  
Everyone began talking at once. "QUIET!" Oz yelled. Everyone shut up and looked at the usually quiet werewolf. "That's better. Before anything else is said I want Draco and Hermione to tell me who just arrived."  
  
Hermione stepped forward and began, "This is Harry Po-"  
  
"Pothead," Draco cut in.  
  
"Ron Wea-"  
  
"Weasel."  
  
"Draco shut the hell up before I hex you!"  
  
Draco pouted. "Spoil my fun."  
  
"I'm starting again. Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin meet Buffy Summers, Spike, Dawn Summers, Anya, Xander Harris, Andrew, Willow Rosenberg, Daniel Osbourne, Dally Winston, Ariel, Cordelia Chase, Lorne, Connor and Winifred Burkle."  
  
"Daniel Osbourne?" Remus asked. "The werewolf who learnt to control the wolf inside?"  
  
"You've heard of me?" asked Oz.  
  
"Every werewolf knows your name."  
  
Oz nodded and said very wisely, "Woah."  
  
The noise suddenly stopped, everyone either sat or stood and nodded at each other.  
  
"So," said Xander, "Who's up for some Mexican?"  
  
There were nods and agreements everywhere.  
  
- - - - -  
  
"So," said Gunn, "When do you think they'll let us go?"  
  
"I imagine they won't," answered Wes. "Why do you want to know?"  
  
"It's just so boring down here. And Giles is drooling on me. But I wonder what they're doing."  
  
"Something unimaginably fun," said Angel sarcastically.  
  
- - - - -  
  
Draco sat down on a deckchair next to Hermione in the Summers' backyard. It was a nice warm night and the day had just become dusk. "I can't believe that just happened," said Draco.  
  
"I know," answered Hermione, "That was so weird."  
  
"You'd have never thought that Connor would get down on his knees in front of everyone, confess his undying love for Dawn and then agree to runaway and elope."  
  
Hermione gave Draco a half smile. "Well I'm actually quite glad that happened. Dawn seemed a bit annoying and Connor. well, he seemed a bit. peculiar."  
  
"At least you weren't here when Dawn was continually swooning over Spike. I wonder how dear 'Uncle Angel' feels about his son running away with his ex's little sister."  
  
"Does Angel know about this yet?"  
  
"I think Spike's gone to tell him."  
  
- - - - -  
  
"What do you want Spike?" asked Giles.  
  
"I've just come to give darling Angel some news about his son."  
  
"What did you do to him?" Angel growled.  
  
Spike smirked. "Me? I didn't do anything. It's more about what Dawn Summers did."  
  
"What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
"Connor has fallen in love with the Slayer's little sister. Dear Connor proposed and the two of them ran off and have eloped."  
  
The four men tied down to chairs stared at the blonde vampire in shock then all four fainted simultaneously. Spike shook his head and said to himself, "They haven't even heard about how Connor got here."  
  
- - - - -  
  
The next morning the occupants of the Summers' house were all assembled in the kitchen helping themselves to breakfast. Oz looked around at everyone and asked, "So what are we all doing today?"  
  
"Well, we were thinking about playing a bit of volleyball," answered Xander.  
  
"That's just bloody great isn't it," butted in Spike, "choose to do something-"  
  
Spike was cut off by a pop, which signalled the arrival of a wizard. Everyone turned towards the newly arrived wizard. "Hey!" exclaimed Harry Potter, "it's Voldemort in a bunny suit."  
  
At the sight of the evil Lord Voldemort in a fluffy bunny suit, Anya began to scream, although her ear splitting scream of death was cut off by Voldemort saying some funny spell along the lines of "I have a pretty crappy anagram for a name" and Anya's sudden disappearance.  
  
Ron Weasley turned to Harry and Sirius. "Do you think that we should put on a display of stupid heroics?"  
  
"I'll do it," volunteered the very stupid Sirius.  
  
Sirius walked up to Voldemort, who by now was trying to find a carrot, and said, "You shall die."  
  
Voldemort answered tartly, "Hmm, no, not really." He then pointed his wand at him and voila! Sirius disappeared, never to be seen again.  
  
Buffy broke through the crowd of people and screamed at Voldie in tears, "Why are you doing this to us?"  
  
He shrugged. "The authors just want to get rid of unneeded characters, that's all."  
  
Taken aback Buffy replied, "Oh, that makes sense."  
  
With a volley of spells the next thing you knew Gunn, Cordelia and Wes were no more. Harry decided that it was about time to add in the obligatory, "NOOOOOOOO!"  
  
After the outburst of emotion everyone was silent. They all turned to dear old bunny Voldie who now had his face covered in chocolate.  
  
Voldie turned to them realising that they were watching him, "I think I'll go now."  
  
With a pop! he was gone, bunny tail, floppy ears and chocolate covered feet and all.  
  
"Uh what just happened?" asked Willow.  
  
"Voldemort just killed five people," replied Ron.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Let's take a moment here guys," said Oz. "We're lucky, we survived. We're taking a moment..... and we're done."  
  
"So what do we want to do now?" asked Draco.  
  
"VOLLEYBALL!" yelled Hermione.  
  
"Huh?" Draco, Ron, Remus and Ariel all looked lost.  
  
"Come outside I'll show you the basics," said Fred. Fred took Draco by the arm and led him outside. Hermione crossed her arms and glared at Fred. Hermione looked around and saw that Ariel, Ron and Remus still looked quite lost.  
  
She walked over to Ariel and said, "Ariel I'll teach you the concept of volleyball." Hermione took Ariel by the hand and walked past Draco and Fred.  
  
Everyone except Spike, Buffy, Angel and Giles shrugged and followed the others outside. "Well then Angel baby," said Spike, "time for you to go back to the basement."  
  
"Come on G-man," added Buffy, "downstairs for you."  
  
"Oh goodie," replied Giles. "I get to be tied up on a chair and ridiculed by Spike again. And this time instead of having someone intelligent like Wesley to converse with, all I have is Mr Tortured-Soul over there."  
  
"Oh Giles you're so funny when you're sarcastic," Buffy said in an overly sweet voice and with a smile. She dropped the smile and voice and practically growled, "Now move it."  
  
- - - - -  
  
After a few games of volleyball everyone retired to their respective duties, moping, giggling over how cute someone is, playing games at jealousy, torturing already tortured souls; you know the usual stuff. Xander went into the lounge room and sat down, ready to exchange witty banter with someone; instead of Andrew or the dearly departed Anya, Xander encountered Lorne.  
  
"Hey, what's happening Lorne? Get your ass kicked enough in volleyball?"  
  
"Yes my behind is quite bruised. Apart from that I'm just wondering what the deal is with Spike and his sons."  
  
Xander frowned. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Well they're obviously here for a reason, I just don't know what it is?"  
  
"Hey I never thought of that. Now that you mention it, it is a bit strange that Spike all of a sudden has three sons."  
  
Xander and Lorne sat in contemplative silence until Lorne spoke up. "It has to be a prophecy." Lorne saw the perplexed look on Xander's face and explained, "When something doesn't make sense, a prophecy is the cause of it all."  
  
Xander nodded in agreement, "Makes sense. But what do you think will happen?"  
  
"Probably something to do with the destruction of the world as we know it."  
  
"Not too shabby if I do say so myself." Xander and Lorne sat in silence as they acknowledged the end of the world was most likely at hand.  
  
"I think I'll go get a drink," said Lorne.  
  
"Yeah I think I'm up for one too."  
  
- - - - -  
  
Willow walked down the stairs carrying her suitcase and stopped at the front. "Bye everyone!" she yelled as loud as she could. The large group of fourteen people came running.  
  
"Willow where are you going?" asked Buffy.  
  
"I'm going to Disneyland for a holiday."  
  
"Say hi to Dumbledore for us if you see him," said Draco.  
  
"But Will," Buffy looked like she was on the verge of tears, "we need you. You're the computer nerd, super powerful Wicca. You're the only smart person here."  
  
"Hey!" many people including Hermione, Harry and Ron exclaimed indignantly.  
  
Draco snorted. "Potty and the Weasel smart? The only reason you ever solved the mysteries at Hogwarts was because Hermione was there."  
  
"We managed to figure some things out on our own," Ron retorted hesitantly. Draco raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Um can we get back to me leaving here?" Willow asked.  
  
"Oh right. Have fun Will," said Oz of the many words.  
  
Willow waved to the group then walked out the door. The rest of the group stood there and went quiet. Buffy spontaneously looked at her watch for no reason and exclaimed, "It's midday! I'm going shopping! Bye!"  
  
Everyone waved half-heartedly as they left. Andrew announced to everyone, "I am going to be in the kitchen if you need to find me." With that announcement Andrew turned away from the dispersing group of people and walked into the kitchen to make some yummy treats for the starving masses inside the Summers' house.  
  
Spike sauntered into the kitchen, "What you up to mate?"  
  
"Well," answered Andrew, putting on his apron, "I'm going to start off with some yummy cake with jelly beans and then I'm going to make dinner."  
  
Spike looked intently at him, acting as excited as an evil vampire can be. "Are there going to be onion flowers?"  
  
"Well, since we'll be eating spaghetti I don't think-"  
  
Andrew was cut off by Spike, who had lent across the bench in the middle of the Summers' kitchen and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. Spike then growled at him, "You will make onion flowers, I bloody well taught you how to." Spike then released him.  
  
"Okay, okay," said Andrew, in whine mode. "No need to get all Oscar the Grouch on me."  
  
- - - - -  
  
Oz walked into the dining room and found Remus reading a book about some cure for lycanthropy that was trying to be found.  
  
"Hey Mr Lupin."  
  
Remus jumped slightly and saw Oz sitting across from him. "Uh call me Remus. No one else does except for Sirius, Dumbledore and Hermione. Just because I was a teacher before doesn't mean that people should continue calling me Professor. I was best friends with Harry's father; they can call me Remus..." Remus had begun rambling and Oz just looked at him.  
  
"Uh right Remus. What are you reading?"  
  
"Wizards are again trying to find a cure for lycanthropy. They wont find it though." Remus sighed.  
  
"You know Remus I could teach you how to control the wolf if you wanted. You'd be able to go out during the full moon and everything."  
  
A bright spark came into Remus' eyes and he suddenly looked like a kid in a candy store. "You'd really help me Oz? Wow that would be great! I haven't been out during a full moon since I was five. Wow. thanks Oz."  
  
"Woah."  
  
- - - - -  
  
Spike, doing the rounds down in the basement, decided that he would torture Angel a little bit more. "You know what's really cute about Buffy?"  
  
Giles replied peevishly, "No I don't know and I bloody well don't want to know."  
  
Spike cocked his head to the side. "Maybe you don't want to know Mr Giles but I think Angel here does." Spike leant towards Angel, to peer into his face, "Don't you Uncle Angel?"  
  
Angel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Nothing can be cuter than."  
  
"Than what Angel my boy?"  
  
"Than the cleansing sight of fluffy bunnies on a healthy green lawn."  
  
Spike smiled as if in pain and faked a sigh. "Well I guess I have no choice then. I'm going to have to go and get Xander-"  
  
He was cut off by groans of pain and cries of protest from Giles and Angel. Just as Spike opened his mouth Andrew came running down the stairs. Spike turned to him, "What's wrong now Andrew?"  
  
"Buffy got lost at the mall, no one can find her. And even worse it's dark," Andrew then collapsed in tears.  
  
"Bloody hell. I'll go get her." Spike then left the prisoners to go save his precious Buffykins. The three people watched Spike run up the stairs then Andrew turned to the prisoners.  
  
"So what were you guys up to?" he asked.  
  
"Well," answered Giles, "Spike was just about to let us go."  
  
"Oh okay." Andrew then stupidly undid their bindings and left, muttering to himself about cumquats and the benefits of lemon juice in everything. Angel and Giles stood up and looked at each other. "So what are you going to do now Angel?"  
  
"Well I'm going to go on a pilgrimage for redemption, and I'm going to find the cutest thing in the world in an attempt to upstage Spike." Giles simply raised his eyebrows and nodded. "So what are you going to do with yourself Giles?"  
  
"I have a plan to resurrect Wesley, and then together we will become female superstar singers, land the leads in Chicago and kick Catherine Zeta-Jones' and Renee Zelleweger's skinny butts."  
  
- - - - -  
  
Hermione was sitting with her legs crossed on the couch in the lounge room surrounded by Willow's old text books. She was grinning as she worked her way through algebra, calculus, physics and many other hard subjects. 'I can't believe I've missed out on all these excellent and fun subjects for seven years.' Hermione looked up as Fred walked into the lounge room clinging to Draco's arm. Hermione's grin turned into a smirk as she looked Fred and Draco up and down. She gave them a contemptuous glance and said, "Oh. It's you."  
  
Hermione went back to her books and gave Hermione a superior glance. "What are you doing Mione?" asked Draco.  
  
"Oh just some Muggle high school subjects. I've already done years 7-10 and I'm now working on an in-depth study of inertia."  
  
"And how long has it taken you to do all that?" Fred asked in a snotty voice.  
  
Hermione shrugged. "A couple of hours?"  
  
Draco looked at Hermione in admiration and Fred looked at her in shock. At that moment Fred had a revelation, either she could hit the books and prove to Draco that she was more intelligent than Hermione, or she could take advantage of Hermione's absence to hang around him at every chance possible. Being socially inept, Fred chose the former of the two choices.  
  
Fred turned to Draco with a smile on her face and sweetly, "You know, I've actually written a few science articles that have been published."  
  
Draco raised his eyebrows and replied politely, "That's really good."  
  
"Well," piped up Hermione, who had been watching the scene unfold, "I-"  
  
Lorne turned away from the battle of the brains, having seen enough. He strolled outside into the backyard to have a moment of reflection, but, being in Sunnydale his moment of reflection didn't last long at all. There was a crash followed by yelling. Lorne shook his head and mumbled to himself, "What on earth has happened now?" He went back inside and followed the sounds of yelling to the lounge room to find Dally, Ariel and Oz on the floor. Lorne turned away from them, "I won't ask."  
  
"What the hell do you think you're doing Ariel?" Dally roared.  
  
Ariel got up and helped Oz onto his feet and turned to answer Dally. "Well I couldn't help it if I was practising my mind reading techniques within the vicinity of two people who just happened to be at the top of the stairs."  
  
"Well think next time."  
  
"But-" all of a sudden Dally and Ariel broke out into a brawl, knocking pictures off the wall and generally making a mess.  
  
Oz stood and watched calmly, "Woah, gnarly." Oz then turned around at the sound of a blood curling scream. "What the?" Oz ran into the dining room just in time to see Fred slap Hermione across the face.  
  
Hermione breathed hard then looked back at Fred, a murderous glint in her eye. Draco held his breath as watched Hermione stare coldly at Fred. Draco had seen that look in Hermione's eye before. It had been right before she slapped him in their third year at Hogwarts. He was tad worried about what Hermione was going to do.  
  
Hermione continued to stare at Fred. "Fine Burkle," she said coldly. "If you want Draco so much just take him. He's not mine."  
  
Hermione walked into the lounge room, her back straight and her head held high. She walked straight past Dally and Ariel, who were rolling on the floor punching each other, picked up her books and went out to the backyard.  
  
Fred stared at the spot where Hermione had previously been standing. She sauntered over to Draco, took his arm possessively and said in a contemptuous voice, "Well. What a snob."  
  
Giles walked into the lounge room, saw Ariel and Dally on the floor fighting, Fred hanging onto Draco's arm looking at him adoringly and the rather perturbed look on Draco's face. He then turned on his heel, walked out of the lounge room and went to get himself a stiff drink. 


	14. Episode 13: Drunkenness, War and a Hell ...

Chapter 16- Drunkenness, War and a Hell of a lot of Other Stuff  
  
BANG! CRASH! BOOM!  
  
Spike dragged an unwilling Buffy into the lounge room not realising that Willow was back and had brought someone with her.  
  
"Buffy!" Spike yelled, "I've been looking in that bloody shopping centre for a bloody week. How the hell did you manage to get lost in a shoe shop?"  
  
The rest of the household came running into the lounge room and stopped abruptly. "Willow, you're back!" Xander called out happily. He sped over to her and engulfed her in a huge hug.  
  
"Dumbledore!" Hermione yelled. Draco grinned and untangled himself from Fred. Hermione, Draco, Harry, Ron and Remus walked over to the old man with twinkling blue eyes. They didn't notice that the rest of the room had fallen silent at Hermione's outburst.  
  
"Who are you talking about?" asked Buffy, horrified, "That's Ethan-bloody- Rayne!"  
  
Ron jumped in and said, "Correction, who are you talking about?" Everyone paused and looked at Ron, confused. They all looked at each other, wondering just what the orange haired wizard was talking about.  
  
"Well, anyway, back to the point at hand," said Xander, "Willow, why did you bring Ethan Rayne here?"  
  
Willow replied, puzzled, "What do you mean Ethan Rayne? Because this," She gestured stiffly at a humbled Dumbledore, "is not Ethan Rayne."  
  
The room collapsed into disorder as Harry began accusing the whole Scooby Gang of trying to kill Dumbledore and Buffy began to try some kung fu on old Dumbledore. "Hold it!" yelled Lorne.  
  
"Yes, listen up everybody," said the ever wise Dumbledore, "I believe he has something important to say."  
  
Everyone grudgingly turned to Lorne, some glaring at Dumbledore, others looking at him, confused as to why this man would cause such uproar. "I can explain it all to you," announced Lorne, "You see, since you guys aren't magical," said Lorne, pointing to Buffy and her crew, "you can't see Dumbledore. Since you guys are magical," Lorne then pointed to Hermione and her company, "you can see Dumbledore."  
  
Spike frowned, "But why the hell does he look like Ethan-bloody-Rayne?"  
  
"Well," answered Lorne, "Dumbledore took on the face of the nearest powerful wizard, who just happened to be Ethan Rayne."  
  
There was a big chorus of, "Oh."  
  
At this point Giles, who had spent the last week in the shed in a drunken stupor, stumbled into the room. Everyone minus Dumbledore gave a collective gasp. "It's Giles," Andrew said with wide eyes and a pointing finger.  
  
"But how could he possibly escape?" Xander asked, slapping his face to make sure it wasn't a dream.  
  
Giles weaved further into the room and fell to the ground. "Ethan Rayne. he- he.is.he-he.coming," Giles then dropped into unconsciousness.  
  
All of the the Buffy side of the room erupted into screams and Harry decided to throw in the obligatory, "NOOOOO!" Everyone stopped screaming and looked at him. Harry shrugged and said, "It seemed like the right thing to do." After the paused everyone again erupted into screams, someone accidentally turned off the lights and the screaming mass of people was plunged into darkness. Needless to say there was more screaming, a few crashes and a whole heap of pandemonium.  
  
A booming voice yelled above the noise, "LUMOS!" The room was all of a sudden lit up by the tip of Dumbledore's wand. Eh then said quietly, "Someone turn on the lights." Fred obediently shuffled over to the lights and turned them on. Dumbledore took over the situation, "Let's all sit down and talk about the problems we are having." The imperative tone which Dumbledore possessed persuaded everyone to sit down in the lounge room to see what was going on with everyone else.  
  
"Ooh!" cried Andrew, "Can I pleas run the meeting?"  
  
"Since when was a meeting?" asked Dally, disgusted at the idea of having a weird king of family meeting.  
  
"You can run the meeting," said Dumbledore, "and yes, Dally, this is a meeting."  
  
Andre looked around and then stood up and announced, "This meeting has officially begun. Is there any old business?"  
  
"No. can we move on Andrew?" snarled Dally.  
  
"Any new business?" Andrew continued.  
  
Draco raised his hand. "I have new business. I want Fred to stop hanging off me. When we first arrived in LA it was obvious you wanted Ariel, go cling to his arm."  
  
"I second that motion," Hermione piped up.  
  
Without making a fuss Fred let go of Draco, grabbed Ariel and sat back down.  
  
"Anymore new business?" Andrew continued.  
  
Xander spoke up, "Well, I would like to know what Giles is doing untied and roaming free."  
  
The drunken Giles took offence to this and tried horribly to defend himself, "I-I-I'm not a bloody.what do you call em? Animal, yeah, animal."  
  
"At the moment you're not really at a human level."  
  
"Well.yeah," said Giles.  
  
"The main thing is though," said Willow, "What are you going to do with yourself?"  
  
Giles stood up, raised his head high and said, "I plan to fulfil the secret dream that every watcher has; I'm going to star in a Broadway production of the hit musical 'Chicago'."  
  
"Okay then," said Andrew, "Now that that's sorted any other business?"  
  
Dumbledore stood up, "I hate to say this but I have quite a lot to say, so if you will please bear with me." Everyone nodded amicably, although Dally just rolled his eyes, eager to get out of the house. Dumbledore then continued, not before giving a look of mirth to Dally with his twinkling eyes, "Firstly, I hate to say that I will be going back to England rather hastily tomorrow morning. It seems that the Order needs me there. Anyone who wishes to come can join me. Secondly, there has been a traitor in the midst of the Order of the Phoenix. Apparently the lady known as Meriath is really Professor Umbridge."  
  
At this news Draco, Hermione, Ron and Harry gave each other looks of surprise and horror. Draco soon recovered from his shock and then began glaring at Harry and Ron again, at this Dumbledore continues, "I know it's quite a shock, but apparently we foiled her grand plan to take over the world. She is no longer a worry to any of us." Everyone seemed to pause after Dumbledore had finished.  
  
Andrew, ever the one to fill in the silence said, "Okay, third item o the agenda-"  
  
He was cut off by Ariel who pointed out that they never had an agenda. "We do now," said Andrew vehemently, "Either way, the second item on the agenda, who is leaving tomorrow with Dumbledore?"  
  
Harry, Ron, Remus and Xander raised their hands. "Xander?" said Oz, surprised, "You're going?"  
  
"That bunny suit guy killed Anya," replied Xander. "I must avenge her. Besides, Willow had a holiday and I feel like one as well."  
  
"Good reason."  
  
Meanwhile Harry and Ron had been staring at Hermione as if they were trying to make Hermione raise her hand simply by looking at her hand hard enough.  
  
"Hermione?" said Harry meekly. Eh wasn't particularly looking to incur the wrath of Hermione Granger.  
  
"Yes Harry?"  
  
"Aren't you going o come back with us?" asked Ron, cutting straight to the point.  
  
"No."  
  
"But Mione, you're Head Girl, Hogwarts needs you."  
  
"Draco's Head Boy but you don't care that he's staying."  
  
"Please Hermione be reasonable."  
  
"I'm. Staying. Here." Hermione's voice had gotten louder with each word and she looked ready to explode.  
  
"But-"  
  
"You heard the woman," Draco butted in, "If she says she's staying here there's nothing you two dick heads can do about it."  
  
"Why I oughta-" Ron started at Draco, but Harry stopped him and looked pointedly at Dumbledore who was standing there, looking at them as if he were amused.  
  
"Okay, that's enough, I'm calling order to this meeting," announced Andrew. Since everyone was talking the use of Andrew's pathetically whiney voice yielded no results, so he resorted to banging his useless book against the coffee table. No one stopped talking so Andre got up and began to flicker the lights on and off. This most certainly got everyone's attention as they all stopped talking to look accusingly at the phantom light flickerer.  
  
Ariel although was disappointed and said to Andrew, "Why'd you stop? It looked so pretty."  
  
Andrew just looked at him, vexed about the shambles that the meeting has fallen into. "Okay, let's summarise the meeting. Giles, you are going to go and star in 'Chicago', Fred is going to hang off Ariel's arm instead of Draco's and Xander, Ron, Harry and Remus are all going to help p Dumbledore defeat someone who's mean and evil. Alright everybody, the meeting's adjourned."  
  
"Finally," said Dally. "I'm out of here. If anyone needs me I'll be at the pub."  
  
"Hey, if you're getting drunk I wanna come with," Hermione replied.  
  
"Hermione Granger!" exclaimed Harry in shock.  
  
"That's my name." Harry just stared at her.  
  
Dally stood up. "Well come on Granger. Let's get rip roaring drunk."  
  
Hermione and Draco stood up. "I'm coming as well," said Draco, "I could use a good beer after that meeting."  
  
The rest of the group watched in stunned silence as Dally, Draco and Hermione left to find a good pub.  
  
---------------  
  
Harry, Ron and Remus sat down in the lounge room, which just happened to also be their bedroom, and looked at each other dismally. Harry heaved a huge angsty sigh and turned to Remus with his wounded bird face. "Why do you think Hermione is being like this? I mean, she was never like this before."  
  
Remus prepped himself to give the two boys who were looking at him hopefully the answers to their queries and said, "I honestly don't know. I'm rather clueless when it comes to the minds of teenage girls." The boys nodded, accepting that the only way that 'the Hermione situation' could be solved was with a lack of understanding and whining.  
  
---------------  
  
Dally, Draco and Hermione were striding down the street purposefully. Draco looked at Dally's stern face and asked, "Where are we going?"  
  
"Well there's a pub at the docks that doesn't really care what age you re, of course there are a few characters there but that's alright. I was also thinking about heading over to the Bronze to play a bit of pool later."  
  
Hermione looked at Dally's street hardened face and asked him, "How did you find these places?"  
  
He looked at her and smirked, "I've been around town." They rounded the corner to meet the front of a grimy pub which appeared to have some sort of fake rustic façade underneath the grime. In a line the group of three strode into the pub and looked around at the sad looking patrons.  
  
Hermione looked at the lines of coloured bottles along the wall and smiled. "This is going to be good." She then stole a look at Draco, who was also smirking at the wondrous masses of alcohol before him. The three of them walked up to the bar and slammed their hands on it.  
  
"Give me a beer," commanded Dally.  
  
"Vodka, straight," added Hermione.  
  
"Bourbon," finished Draco.  
  
The bartender looked at them slightly askance but gave them what they wanted. Dally downed his schooner in two gulps and Draco and Hermione were very close behind him. They slammed their glasses down on the counter. "Give us a round of shots."  
  
Draco took the tray and they sat down at a broken table. They each took a shot glass, clinked them together and threw their heads back.  
  
A few rounds later, a drunken slanging match with a bathroom door and a meandering stumble to the Bronze later, our three hopelessly drunken characters were attempting to shoot a bit of pool at one of the pool tables.  
  
"Stop trying to beat me," said Dally to Draco, who had out shot both Dally and Hermione, who were playing together.  
  
"I'm telling you now, I'm not trying, and you're just not playing well." Dally simply grunted at Draco's response and bent over to take his shot. Instead of sinking a perfectly straight shot, Dally jumped the white ball off the table.  
  
Frustrated, Dally threw down his cue, causing a stir amongst the teenagers at the Bronze. "I've had enough, I need a drink," he announced and with that, stalked off into the crowd.  
  
Draco looked over at Hermione, who was leaning against a pillar, bored, and asked, "Do you wanna finish off this game?"  
  
"Nah, it's getting boring."  
  
Draco nodded in agreement and asked amiably, "So what do you want to do?"  
  
Hermione smiled wickedly at him, walked over to him and said, "I would like a drink.and a dance."  
  
Draco smirked back at her, "That can be arranged." They walked over to the dance floor and began to move to the rather droning and depressing music. Draco pulled Hermione closer to him and wrapped his arms around her waist. Hermione draped her arms around his neck and grinned lazily up at him.  
  
She took a deep breath and slurred, "You smell good." Although, in reality he didn't as his breath stunk of whiskey. As one they began swaying and spinning, going faster and faster until the song ended.  
  
"So how about that drink," Draco said breathlessly.  
  
"Sounds bloody good to me cutie pie." Together they strolled, or stumbled, hard to tell really, over to the bar where Dally was drinking himself silly.  
  
"Hey cute Mr. Bartender-Guy!" Hermione yelled out to the ugly bartender with many tattoos. "Can I have a bottle of whiskey?"  
  
"Don't you think you've had enough Her-minny?" asked Dally haltingly.  
  
"Me?!" exclaimed Hermione. "You've drunk more than me! At least I can still pronounce people's names!" Draco nodded his head, although he immediately regretted doing so as the room was already spinning around crazily enough as it was.  
  
The tattooed barman walked over to Draco and Hermione and growled, "What do you want?"  
  
Hermione took a breath, about to order her and Draco a drink, but she paused, "Uh, what was I going to ask again? Oh, yeah, a drink!" Hermione held up her hand, as if she had revealed the secrets of the universe.  
  
The barman looked at her dryly, "And you think I'm gonna give you a drink? You need to be more specific."  
  
"Well. I.would like a. cocktail. Yeah, a cocktail."  
  
Draco watched, bemused at Hermione's drunken behaviour, suddenly he remembered what he was going to tell her before, "Hermy, I think we don't need another drink."  
  
Hermione looked at him outraged, "My name is not Herm-Hermy and you cannot tell me what to do."  
  
"But-" Draco was cut off by a rather inebriated Dally.  
  
"We shouldn't tell each other what to do."  
  
Draco gathered what little wits he had and replied, "We're all drunk." As soon as the words left his mouth the conversation turned into one giant, drunken slanging match over nothing, with both Draco and Dally threatening to throw punches. Needless to say they were thrown out onto the street in a matter of two minutes by some burly and sober security guards.  
  
"Good on yous. You.got us thrown.out.of the.place," drawled Hermione.  
  
Draco, who had sobered up slightly from his brawl with Dally, said, "I'm taking you home Hermione. You've had plenty for one night. Although why I'm taking you back to a house full of alcoholics, I don't know." While Draco had been saying this Hermione had staggered to the curb and vomited. Draco hurried over to her and put one of her arms around his neck as he helped her up. "Okay Mione, we're going home. Come on Dally."  
  
---------------  
  
"You shook me all night long!"  
  
'What the hell?' thought Harry as he walked outside and saw Dally, Draco and Hermione stumbling along the footpath while singing AC/DC songs at the tops of their lungs. Harry took one look at them then stepped in front of them making them stop. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the three drunken youths.  
  
"Hi Harry," Hermione giggled.  
  
"These people are a bad influence on you Hermione," said Harry. "You are coming with us to England tomorrow."  
  
Hermione scowled, then began singing again, "Don't tell me what to do, and don't tell me what to say, and when we go out at night don't put me on display. I'm young and I love to be young, I'm free and I love to be free to live my life the way that I want, do and say whatever I please. You don't own me."  
  
"Indeed," said Harry, "But you're on a path of self destruction."  
  
"No, I most certainly am not!" retorted Hermione.  
  
Draco snapped to attention at this point and said, "Yeah, what she said Potty." Draco looked around him and noticed that it appeared to be quite cold, "Let's go inside yeah?"  
  
Dally, who had lost the ability to form coherent sentences nodded and Hermione put her hand on Draco's shoulder to weave around Harry. They made it to the stairs up to the front door, at which point Hermione fell over and immediately started laughing with Draco. Harry turned to her and helped her up. He then said to her, "Let's get you inside okay?"  
  
"I'm fine," answered Hermione, with a smile on her face, "Draco's gonna help me anyway, aren't you?"  
  
"Yup, I am," Draco put his arm around her waist and nearly fell over, but soon enough they had gotten themselves in the door. Harry followed them in and shut the front door against the night, shaking his head the whole way.  
  
--------------  
  
Draco woke up on the lounge the next morning with a splitting headache. "Ohh my head," moaned a voice next to him. He turned his head slowly so as not to cause himself anymore pain and saw Hermione clutching her head looking as though she was trying to get it not to explode.  
  
Ron walked in and handed Hermione the glass of water and Panadol he was carrying. "What, don't I get a drink as well Weasel?" drawled Draco.  
  
"No you don't. You're the reason she's acting like this," Ron snapped. He turned to Hermione and continued in a gentler voice, "Hermione, Dumbledore said we're leaving in a couple of hours. Is that enough tie for you to get ready?"  
  
"What do you mean 'for me to get ready'?" replied Hermione uncertainly.  
  
"Well Harry told me you're coming back to England with us."  
  
"No I bloody well am not!" Hermione exclaimed indignantly. "Just because Harry says so doesn't mean I am. I thought he learnt that last night."  
  
At this point Harry walked in followed by Spike and Buffy. "Hermione you're coming and that's final," Harry commanded in an imperative tone. Spike and Buffy grabbed Harry by the back of his shirt and slammed him into the nearest wall.  
  
"Look buster," growled Spike, "if Hermione doesn't want to go back she doesn't bloody have to. And if you don't stop being such a bitch I will bite you."  
  
Harry nodded, obviously scared of the imposing larger version of Draco. Buffy and Spike both released him, and he walked away, mumbling to himself about blondes. Hermione struggled to her feet and said to both Spike and Buffy, "Thanks for sorting that out for me, sometimes he's just impossible to deal with."  
  
"That's alright love," said Spike, "Anytime you want a bit of biffo, me and my boys will happily be there."  
  
Hermione nodded, grateful, she then turned to a rather stunned and scared looking Ron and the perpetually laid back Draco and said to them, "I'm going to have a shower."  
  
After Hermione left, Ron looked shiftily at Spike, Buffy and Draco, expecting them to attack him at any given moment. He then scuttled out of the lounge room as quick as his legs could carry him.  
  
Spike then approached Draco and clapped a hand on his shoulder, "Son, I'm proud of you."  
  
Draco looked at him, scandalised and asked, "What on earth for?"  
  
"Well, it was your first unsupervised drunk night out, the first time you've ever gotten a girl drunk and the first time you've gotten yourself kicked out of somewhere for drunken behaviour. You see, that's all I really want in a son; a bit of first class drunken loutishness."  
  
Buffy looked at Spike and giggled, "That's really not what you should be telling your son."  
  
"But it's the truth," answered Spike as innocently as an evil vampire could.  
  
In reply Buffy wrapped Spike in her arms and began whispering in his ear; soon enough, Spike had a smirk on his face. Draco turned away from the sickening sight and closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep and trying to block out all emanations of puppy love coming from his father and the blonde slayer.  
  
-------------  
  
Ariel was walking around the house, still wearing nothing but his pyjamas from when he went to bed and his hair accordingly askew. He approached Andrew, who was sitting at the dining room table, tying to look busy and important, both of which he was failing at horribly. "Hey Andrew, have you seen Dally around?"  
  
"No, but I-" Andrew's drawn out response was cut short by Ariel who held up a hand.  
  
"Shut up," said Ariel to him simply and effectively. He began to wander aimlessly looking for his older brother while Harry, Ron, Remus and Xander ran around trying to get ready to leave. Ariel was about to walk into the bathroom where he could hear water running but was grabbed by Fred before he could turn the handle.  
  
"Hey there you handsome man you," Fred greeted him coyly.  
  
"By man I presume you mean teenager?" replied Ariel with his eyebrows raised.  
  
"Well you're 18 so you're an adult, therefore making you a man."  
  
"I'm not 18."  
  
"19 then, sorry about that," Fred giggled.  
  
"I meant I'm less than 18."  
  
"You are?" Fred dropped his arm and her eyes widened in shock.  
  
"Yeah, I'm 15."  
  
"What?!" Fred stared at Ariel for a few minutes then turned on her heel and fled back down the hallway, with tears streaming down her face.  
  
Ariel shrugged and turned around to open the bathroom door. He then screamed the loudest and girliest scream that he had ever screamed before. For in front of him stood Dumbledore, wearing nothing buy a towel upon his head and a towel around his waist. Dumbledore, who was startled by Ariel's sudden entrance, did not have a chance to say anything before Ariel fled down the hall in the same direction as Fred.  
  
---------------  
  
Downstairs, Spike, Buffy, Draco, Hermione and Remus heard the bloodcurdling scream from their sunny disposition in the lounge room. The scream was followed by a blonde teenage blur that came down the stars and then outside. Remus took his bag at his feet and moved it to the door. The others followed him to the door to wait for Harry, Ron and Xander.  
  
Xander, Harry and Ron came barrelling down the stairs and were followed more sedately by the man with the ever twinkling blue eyes, Albus Dumbledore. "Ah, Remus, excellent you're ready to go."  
  
"I am Albus."  
  
"Ms Granger, Mr Malfoy I take it you definitely won't come back?"  
  
"That's right Professor," replied Hermione. Harry and Ron heaved a massive sigh.  
  
"Well it's May," said Dumbledore, "So there is no point replacing you as Head Boy and Girl. When we get back to Hogwarts I'll make sure all your belongings are sent to you."  
  
"So does this mean you're not going to graduate Mione?" asked Harry, completely innocent, of course.  
  
Hermione gasped, "I'm coming with you. Accio stuff."  
  
"If you're going I might as well too," said Draco. "Dad, we'll be back in two weeks."  
  
"Righto then," said Spike. "Make sure you don't get drunk on school premises."  
  
"I won't Dad," Draco replied with a nasty looking smirk on his face.  
  
The group of leavers and well wishers adjourned out onto the verandah. Coincidentally Willow and Oz arrived back at the house after their early morning coffee run. Willow looked at the luggage that everyone had amassed and said, "So you're all leaving now huh?"  
  
Xander nodded, looking down sadly, "Yeah, we're leaving." Xander then enveloped Willow in a big hug, and lo, there were hugs and tears all round.  
  
Remus though, hung back and approached Oz, who was also not participating in the hug-a-thon. "I'd like to thank you for helping me."  
  
"That's alright."  
  
"So, um, I'm going now."  
  
"Yeah, I'll see you round," said Oz, the man of not so many words.  
  
"Bye."  
  
"Bye."  
  
Hence, with goodbyes and farewells being said, the big group of leavers got into their designated taxis and drove away into the midday sun. Buffy, Willow, Oz, Fred, a flustered Ariel and Andrew looked at each other in silence. Buffy frowned, looked around and remarked, "Dally and Giles aren't here."  
  
"Hey, you're right," said Willow, "Do you think we should look for them?"  
  
Spike, who had stayed on the verandah in the shade, said to them, "I think we should start looking in the house, they were drunken sods the last time anyone saw them."  
  
All nodded ad went inside to fin the drunken pair. After an hour of looking Ariel found both Giles and Dally, together, covered in flour, with party hats on, in the pantry asleep. Ariel looked around, uncertain about what to do. "Dally! Finally. I've been looking for you all morning. I need to talk to you about Draco and Hermione."  
  
Dally staggered out of the pantry and slumped into a stool at the counter. "Okay Ariel, why do you wanna talk about the love birds?"  
  
"Love birds? But they aren't dating or anything are they?"  
  
"Maybe. The looked pretty cosy out on the dance floor last night." Ariel looked distraught. Strangely enough Dally noticed this and asked, "Why do you care about them anyway?"  
  
"Because.uh."  
  
"Because what?"  
  
"Because, well, I'm in love with Hermione," Ariel mumbled.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"I'm in love with Hermione!"  
  
Dally burst out laughing. "Draco's gonna kill you," Dally managed to get out through his laughter. Ariel looked panicked for a moment, until he realised that if he didn't say anything, he wouldn't get killed. Instead, he just looked forlorn, as he now harboured an unrequited love for his brother's girlfriend.  
  
Ariel was brought back to reality at the sound of a thud. Dally had fallen off the stool, still cacking himself. Ariel made a half hearted attempt to defend himself, "It's not that funny!"  
  
"Yes, it is," gasped Dally. Giles crawled out of the pantry, looking half dead and infinitely hung over. Dally noticed him and asked him, "You right there G-man?"  
  
"Need.water." was his feeble response.  
  
The two very naughty sons of Spike smirked at each other ad looked down at the horribly hung over and definitely unfit Giles.  
  
---------------  
  
"Spikey, what are we going to do tonight?" asked a very bored Buffy in a sickeningly sweet voice.  
  
"Well love," answered Spike, who was lying on Buffy's bed, "I was thinking about some drinks and a bit o' music."  
  
Buffy, who was applying tons of hair spray to her head in order to keep her hair in its perpetually perfect state came up with an idea, "I think we should go patrolling, we haven't done that in a while."  
  
Spike looked up and smirked, "That sounds interesting my sweet Buffykins, I think the boys will enjoy that."  
  
Buffy looked at him, her face stricken. "I didn't mean for it to be a group thing," said Buffy, turning away from the mirror reluctantly and looked at him coyly, "I meant for it to be a one on one thing."  
  
"But-"  
  
Buffy then broke out into hysterics yelling at him, "Don't you love me anymore?! I'm gibing out hints but you don't get it! At least Angel understood when I was hinting at something."  
  
"Don't say that bloody name. Angel was a bloody ponce as a good guy and a dickhead as an evil guy. I don't wanna hear that name come from your mouth ever again!"  
  
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," cried Buffy. "I just want some alone time with you."  
  
Buffy broke down into sobs and the hard glint in Spike's eyes that had appeared at Angel's name disappeared. He walked over to her and crouched down. "I'm sorry love; I never meant to make you cry."  
  
Buffy began hiccuping. "I love you Spike."  
  
"Love you too Slayer."  
  
"Spike-"  
  
Spike silenced her with a passionate kiss then pulled away. "I know love, I know. Neither of us meant what we said. You want me alone, and then you can have it. Let's go patrol."  
  
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." Each 'thank you' was punctuated with a kiss. The two stood, Buffy still with tears on her cheeks and went out for some lovely patrol and killing fun.  
  
---------------  
  
Later that evening, it was obvious that Fred had been affected by the alcoholic residents of the Summer's house. Fred was weeping without abandon into her takeaway noodles as Andrew, Dally, Ariel and Giles stopped eating their hideously greasy takeaway good to watch the grief stricken, forlorn girl.  
  
Willow and Oz walked into the dining room with their food to witness the sad sight of a grieving Fred. Willow stood by Fred's side and softly asked, "Are you alright?"  
  
"No," replied Fred with a blocked nose, "I'm not fine."  
  
"Oh, okay."  
  
Everyone returned to their meals silently. Andrew looked around at the other occupants of the table and asked conversationally, "So, what do you guys wanna do tonight?"  
  
The general response was silence and shrugs, until Oz, who was reprising his position as leader suggested, "I think that a few drinks and a bit of music at home would be a good idea."  
  
Willow smiled at Oz, "That's a great idea, a bit of relaxed fun." The rest of the people at the table nodded, more looking forward to the drinks than anything, well, Fred wasn't really looking forward to anything as she was still sobbing into her noodles.  
  
They all finished off their takeaway food. Oz went to break out the drinks while Willow turned on the music. Fred began hiccuping as she tried to calm her hysterical sobs. She stood up and took the microphone.  
  
"Don't know just.hic.what to do with. hic. myself. Don't know.hic.just what to do.hic. with myself. I'm so used.hic.to doing everything.hic.with you. Doing.hic.everything for two."  
  
The others looked at each other and sat in uncomfortable silence while Fred continued singing her sad little heart out. "Umm Fred, I think that's enough now," Giles tried to gently take the microphone away but Fred refused to give it up.  
  
"No, I refuse. I'm still singing."  
  
They all looked at the upset girl, outraged; they wanted the microphone and they wanted it immediately. Dally stood up, ready to bargain with Fred, "Look, if you give me the microphone now, things will not get uglier than they already are."  
  
Fred responded angrily, "No! It's my life now! Nothing could drag me away from this microphone."  
  
"Okay, that's it," said Giles, standing up. "I'm going to have to declare war on you and your microphone. Who's with me?"  
  
Andrew and Dally stood up and followed Giles out of the lounge room to devise a plan to relinquish the microphone from Fred the distressed. Willow walked back into the lounge room to see Fred curled up sulking with the microphone and Ariel and Oz sitting there looking uncomfortable, she innocently asked, "What happened?"  
  
"Fred refused to give up the mike so now Giles, Dally and Andrew are planning war on Fred."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Meanwhile Giles, Dally and Andrew were planning their attack strategies by playing Dungeons and Dragons. Andrew was again in his red cloak and was making his usual nerdy comments. Dally pulled out his knife and pointed it at Andrew. "Would you shut up? We need to come up with a plan to get the microphone."  
  
"Well Dally, you could try to seduce her with your knife," said a yet again drunken Giles, "then steal the mike from her and maybe then slit her throat."  
  
Dally raised his eyebrows and stared at Giles, who was oblivious to the stares directed his way. Dally sat thinking of a way to solve the problem of the microphone. He looked around and scrutinized Andrew's ridiculous outfit, eh then struck on an ingenious idea. "I know!" yelled out Dally.  
  
"You know what?" asked Andrew, the picture of stupidity.  
  
Dally just shook his head and said, "I know how we can win back the microphone," Dally paused to make sure that he had Andrew and Giles' undivided attention, "We could have a sudden death game of Capture the Flag." Andrew nodded with his eyes glazed over and mouth wide open, excited at the prospect of a giant game of his favourite childhood spot of fun. Giles just sat there singing incoherently.  
  
Andrew smiled. "Now we've just got to propose the game to them."  
  
---------------  
  
The three males walked into the lounge room in single file, with a solemn look upon their faces. They turned to look at Fred who was sitting on the floor clutching the microphone for dear life. Willow and Oz instinctively stood on either side of Fred, ready for some action.  
  
Giles looked at the three people in front of them in turn and began to talk tot hem sternly, "We have a proposition." Willow, Oz and Fred didn't move a muscle, so Giles continued, "We believe, well Dally and Andrew believe, that the war over the microphone should be fought in the form of an epic game of capture the flag. I myself though, wanted a bit of bloodshed, but that apparently isn't gong to happen. So how about it? A game of capture the flag?"  
  
Oz nodded, "That seems reasonable."  
  
"Well then," said Andrew, "It is time to lay down the rules. Number one-"  
  
Andrew's military style speech was interrupted by a blonde head man crashing through the lounge room window. Everyone crowded around Spike, who was sprawled on the floor; Willow asked him, "What's going on?"  
  
Spike slowly raised himself off the floor and answered, "At the moment we're have a royal bloody battle to the death."  
  
"With who?"  
  
Spike got onto his feet and looked out the window, watching Buffy try to kick some evil arse. He turned to them, "Ethan Rayne's back."  
  
Everyone looked at each other and started screaming in panic.  
  
A/N: Pencil Gal and Broadway Betty would like to thank the following for this amazingly long and ranting chapter: Mr Petro for his boring maths classes which fuel thoughts of everything other than maths, our own pitiful and warped imaginations, the people who hate our story and have NOT reviewed, Ms Bonis for actually having the guts to read the whole thing and the unevasive fact that we, frankly, have nothing better to with our time than write and read fan fiction and go to the beach. Now you can review. 


	15. Episode 14: Vomiting, Spew and Explosion...

Chapter 17 – Vomiting, Spew and Explosions  
  
Ariel looked at all the screaming individuals. He turned and walked upstairs then stepped into Willow's wardrobe. Ariel sat himself down on a pair of Willow's stiletto boots and sighed loudly. "Oh my love. Hermione, my darling. Hermione how could you do this to me? Why did you run off with my arch-nemesis, my older brother? I can't live with this pain my dearest one."  
  
Ariel sighed again and continued to mourn Hermione's alleged relationship with Draco. The problem was that in Ariel's eyes Hermione was so perfect, she was wickedly smart, she had a fiery temper, a stubborn disposition and a like of going out and getting drunk. And therein lay the problem, Hermione was perfect for Draco, and hence, not so perfect for Ariel.  
  
As the house shook violently Ariel nearly began to cry as he realised that he would never be evil enough to be with Hermione. It was in this moment of complete despair when the house around him quaked as if the world were going to end and when the wardrobe he was in threatened to fall over when Ariel had another massive revelation; he was evil, he was the son of two vampires, he was put in his other dimension in order to destroy it. Ariel knew that he could be just like Draco, and just like Draco he could win over Hermione.  
  
Ariel was shaken out of his inspiring internal thoughts by the sudden silence and stillness that had engulfed the house. Ariel tentatively opened the wardrobe door and carefully surveyed Willow's empty room before climbing out. He walked along the hallway which was filled with broken picture frames which had fallen off the wall. As Ariel reached the stairs there was a thump followed by yelling, trying to avoid any conflict Ariel ducked into the bathroom on his right and locked the door behind him.  
  
Ariel sighed and turned around to find Andrew cowering in the bath tub fully clothed. Ariel asked him doggedly, "What are you doing here?"  
  
"What do you think? I'm hiding silly."  
  
Andrew looked so pathetic that Ariel just rolled his eyes and said, "Well then, I'm joining you." With that he hopped into the other end of the bath and immediately turned his thoughts to Hermione and just what she was doing with Draco at Hogwarts. But the silence in the bathroom didn't last long as it was interrupted by a guttural yell from downstairs and someone or something pounding on the door of the bathroom.  
  
"Hey hurry up already!" Spike yelled through the door. "There's a line waiting out here."  
  
Ariel and Andrew got up slowly and tiptoed over to the door. They opened the door slightly but Spike threw it open and stepped in with his vamp face on. "Andrew? Ariel? What the hell are you two doing in here together?" Spike demanded.  
  
"Hiding," Andrew whimpered.  
  
Ariel decided to try and act like Draco. "He was hiding. I was being evil and mocking his weaknesses."  
  
"You shouldn't tell a lie to a vampire son. We can spot them a mile away."  
  
"I was hiding," Ariel sighed.  
  
"Trying to act like Draco won't win you Hermione."  
  
Tears spilled down Ariel's face as he asked, "How did you know?"  
  
"Well it was a bit bloody obvious wasn't it? I mean, we get to Sunnyhell, Hermione arrived and all of a sudden you wanted to do everything but destroy the world. Mate, it's called subtlety, and you have none of it."  
  
Ariel just lowered his head and shuffled past Spike and out of the bathroom to sulk in a preferably empty, dark and small space.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Lorne looked around the lounge room that was filled with tired people and asked the general audience there, "What do we do now that Ethan Rayne is gone?"  
  
"Well," said Buffy, "we hang around and do insipid things like go shopping while waiting for him to come back again."  
  
"Oh," said Lorne nodding, "Would you like me to cook scrambled eggs with extra cheese for dinner?" As per usual there was a chorus of 'yes please'.  
  
Lorne stepped into the kitchen to do his thing. Upon opening the fridge to get the milk. Lorne frowned in confusion; someone had replaced the half used 2 litre bottle with a 3 litre one that had been opened, though unused. Lorne shrugged his shoulders, putting his suspicious wonderings down to too much time spent with Angel. Little did he know that the milk he used was about to come alive and kill them all.  
  
Lorne cooked up the scrambled eggs and dished it up for everyone. Willow and Oz picked up their eggs and looked at it suspiciously. "Do these eggs feel wrong to you?" Oz asked.  
  
Willow picked up her fork and jabbed the eggs tentatively. "They look normal but they seem off." Buffy and Spike then came in and picked up their plates. Spike added a splash of blood to his and suddenly the eggs sprouted arms and legs and jumped on the four unsuspecting individuals. Willow tried to get a hold on the eggs strangling her but failed. "The eggs just slip through your fingers!"  
  
A depressed Ariel and Fred heard the screams and came to investigate. They looked at the suffocating people and shrugged then moved past them to get drinks from the fridge. "Help us," Buffy gasped.  
  
Ariel looked at her. "No. I think I'll be a depressed, brooding evil person. Here's hoping you live." He went back upstairs to mourn his love.  
  
Fred having gotten her drink burst into hysterics because the colour of the evil scrambled eggs reminded her of the colour of Spike's son's hair, except that their hair was somehow blonder, and not so, well, yellow. In fact, the evil scrambled eggs looked nothing like the three boy's hair, but it upset her none the less. She ran out of the room with tears streaming down her tormented looking face.  
  
"Lot of help there," said Oz in his normal monotone, sounding as if he was commenting on the weather, not getting choked to death by evil scrambled eggs.  
  
From within the great glob of evil scrambled eggs and tangled limbs came a great rumbling sound that was reminiscent of Giles in his worst throes of indigestion. The scrambled eggs receded off the struggling people, leaving them standing in the kitchen covered in eggs with their eggs filled with the rumbling of the eggs.  
  
Then there was silence. Oz, Willow, Buffy and Spike looked at each other imploringly. All of a sudden the eggs simultaneously exploded and multiplied, spraying the kitchen and the people in it with its eggy slop. "Well," said Willow, "I guess that's the coup de grace."  
  
"Mmm," said Buffy dryly, "Now we get to clean it up."  
  
Spike frowned, hearing something the others didn't; he turned towards the window and looked out. "Before we do that, I think we better check this out first."  
  
Suddenly a huge rock came flying through the window and hit Buffy in the head. Dally walked into the kitchen as Buffy was knocked out and caught her. Another rock came through the window aiming at Willow. She ducked but only just in time. "What's going on?" Dally asked as he put Buffy on the ground.  
  
"Someone launched a rock war on us," Andrew said as he walked in carrying a rock and note. Lorne and Ariel then joined the others and told them that all the upstairs windows were broken.  
  
"I think whoever's out there has us surrounded," Oz said.  
  
Willow looked around at the people in the kitchen and did a quick head count. "Hey where's Fred?" she asked.  
  
"HELP!" Everyone looked out into the darkness and saw Fred being dragged away by a surly looking vampire.  
  
"Typical," Ariel said contemptuously, "she would be the one who gets taken hostage."  
  
"So do we save her?" asked Andrew. Buffy woke up as Andrew asked his question.  
  
"Do we have to?" she whined.  
  
"Well, yeah, you're the Slayer, you bloody well have to," said Dally.  
  
Buffy heaved a giant sigh and turned to stare out the window and began a wonderfully whiny monologue. "You guys, you don't know how hard it is. Yes, I know that you all have been through a lot, both with me and without me. But there can only be so much that you can understand. What you don't realise is that there is a whole level of things that you guys cannot possibly understand."  
  
Ariel cut in, "Look, if we go out and save Fred, will you shut up?"  
  
"Well, no, but you can go save her if you want, and I won't complain about you not listening."  
  
"Okay," said Spike, "Ariel, Dally and I will go and get Fred and Willow, Oz and Lorne you will go outside and find out what was and, from the looks of the rocks destroying Oz's van, still is chucking rocks at us. Right?"  
  
Everyone nodded and scuttled quickly away from Buffy who promptly turned back to the window and continued her self-pitying, whining and generally completely self-centred soliloquy.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Outside, Spike stood in the middle of Revello Drive and looked around. "I haven't got a clue where Fred went."  
  
Ariel, who had been snooping around, said lightly, "Someone took her in a car across the country."  
  
"How the hell did you know that?" asked Dally.  
  
"Well," said Ariel, "it was in this note." Ariel showed Dally the note that said they were taking Fred to Texas and had to claim her back via a road trip to the middle of nowhere whilst living on nothing but crappy take-away food.  
  
"What do you know?" said Spike. "It's about bloody well time we went on a drunken road trip."  
  
"So we're going?" asked Dally. "What about Buffy?"  
  
"Ah, she'll be ranting for ages, she never runs out of steam."  
  
"Okay, let's go." So Dally, Ariel and Spike set off on their cross-country drunken road trip to find Fred. Well, really, it was just an excuse to get drunk and go places, but they were going anyway.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
"Okay where do you think those things went?" Willow asked.  
  
Oz looked around and started sniffing the air. "They went that way." He pointed towards the centre of town.  
  
"So are we going to follow?" Lorne inquired while sipping his perfectly made sea breeze.  
  
"Yes we are."  
  
"Hmm okay then. Lead the way."  
  
Willow, Oz and Lorne headed into the centre of Sunnydale, stopping at the pub along the way.  
  
- - - Meanwhile at Hogwarts - - -  
  
"Hermione!" Harry and Ron ran up to where Hermione was explaining about Sunnydale to Ginny Weasley while Draco watched on.  
  
"If it isn't Wonder-boy and his little sidekick," Draco drawled.  
  
"Quiet Draco," Hermione reproved him. "What's up guys?"  
  
Harry wasn't looking too good. "I think I'm going to be sick." He then immediately began throwing up. Everyone edged away from him when they saw what he was vomiting.  
  
"Is that dog-" Draco cut himself off.  
  
Hermione covered her mouth to stop herself from being sick as well as she nodded. "Harry that's a shame," Ginny said without much sympathy. "It must be awful to throw up dog poo."  
  
Draco, Hermione and Ron edged away from Harry, grimacing. Hermione said to him tentatively, "Maybe you should go to the Hospital Wing."  
  
Draco nodded. "Yeah, you really should. Except now, Potty, you really do live up to your name."  
  
Harry looked up at the four people staring at him in horror and ran off, embarrassed at his new found talent. Ron looked at the three other people in the Entrance Hall and suddenly remembered the threat that Spike had so kindly warned him with, he then clumsily ran after Harry.  
  
Ginny looked at Draco and Hermione with a face full of mirth and asked cheerily, "So, are you guys going to have lunch?"  
  
"Sounds good," replied Hermione.  
  
The three people headed towards the Great Hall. Draco and Hermione were both looing forward to Saturday. They would be graduating in two days and then the next day they were returning to Sunnydale. As they arrived in the Great Hall they saw that Professor Severus Snape was now also spewing dog poo. Hermione assumed that Harry had run past Snape on the way to the hospital wing thereby causing Snape to catch Harry's problem.  
  
"Umm maybe we should skip lunch," Draco suggested. "I can't handle watching Snape vomit dog poo as well as Scarhead."  
  
"Yeah let's go. We'll see you at dinner Ginny."  
  
Draco and Hermione were almost at Potions when they remembered who their teacher was. "Draco we have Snape," said Hermione, stating the obvious.  
  
"You want to skip class and go to Hogsmeade?"  
  
"Do you think they'd serve us Firewhiskey at the Three Broomsticks?"  
  
"Probably not. We'd have to go to the Hog's Head."  
  
"Fine by me. Let's go Draco."  
  
As they were walking to Hogsmeade Draco and Hermione began talking about everyone's favourite topic of clothes, shoes and accessories. "You know what you need Draco?"  
  
"No Hermione. What do I need?"  
  
"A long black leather coat."  
  
"And why do I need a coat like Spike's?"  
  
"Because it looks cool. And you would look so good in it."  
  
"I would?"  
  
"Definitely. I'm gonna have to take you shopping and dress you in all black Muggle clothes. And when we go I can get new shoes."  
  
"What kind of shoes?"  
  
"Black stiletto boots."  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Meanwhile back in the now horrid hallways of Hogwarts an epidemic like no other was spreading like lightning; nearly the entire school was throwing up dog poo. The few students and teachers who were uninfected had barricaded themselves into the Slytherin common room and had begun to plan rations as if they were under siege.  
  
The few brave people who were unaffected were treating human and house-elf alike, trying to find a cure. But it was Madame Pomfrey who saved the day. After analysing the contents of the students' stomaches, Madame Pomfrey turned to Professor Dumbledore and said with puzzlement, "It appears that only Harry Potter and Professor Snape are vomiting dog poo. All of the others are simply vomiting normal substances."  
  
Dumbledore, who was making an anti-nausea potion, merely paused in his potion making and mumbled, "Hmm, very interesting. I suggest that we isolate them." Madame Pomfrey turned away but was stopped by Dumbledore who was speaking to her, "Also, I believe we should get those uninfected people out of the Slytherin common room."  
  
"Anything else?"  
  
"Oh, yes Poppy, could you also make sure that no one enters the castle?"  
  
Madam Pomfrey nodded her consent and hurried away.  
  
Further within the Great Hall an argument was starting up between Zacharias Smith and Harry Potter. "You realise," said Zacharias spitefully, "that this caper is all your fault?"  
  
Harry, who now had his head over s bucket, still waiting for the anti- nausea potion, that had wore off, lifted his head temporarily and said, "Well I didn't make you go near someone who was infected did I?"  
  
"But-" Zacharias' harebrained attempt to make a retort was cut off by an official sounding voice that resounded through the Great Hall.  
  
"Okay, the Official Medical Observational Quarantine Team is here. First thing's first, all uninfected people out." The man with the official sounding voice directed the uninfected to the doors so they could be sprayed with some foul smelling stuff before they were free to go.  
  
"Dumbledore?" asked the man. "Are you staying?"  
  
"Yes Bruce."  
  
"If you insist."  
  
So Hogwarts was evacuated of all uninfected students and professors and taken to Hogsmeade to wait out the rest of the term whilst the infected students were quarantined. Effectively, school had finished for the year, and only a few people were happy about it.  
  
Draco and Hermione stumbled out of the Hog's Head feeling only slightly tipsy. For some reason no one understood the bartender had kicked them out. As the two were walking down the main street they noticed all the Hogwarts students strolling around. Hermione noticed Ginny nearby and moved towards her. "Ginny what's going on?"  
  
"There was an epidemic of vomiting so school ended early for the year."  
  
"So we're free to go?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
Hermione turned to Draco and said, "We're allowed to go."  
  
"We're allowed to go?"  
  
"We're allowed to go."  
  
"What about our stuff?"  
  
Hermione frowned in thought. "Ginny is anyone allowed back into the castle?"  
  
Draco followed Hermione to the Shrieking Shack and together they snuck down to the basement. Hermione found the hidden door and began to walk through the passageway. Draco continued to follow her in confusion. "Hermione where are we going?"  
  
"Back to Hogwarts to get our stuff."  
  
"So why are we in this dank, dirty, obviously secret passageway?"  
  
"Because we're sneaking in."  
  
"How come I didn't know about this?"  
  
Hermione spun around and smiled. "Because you weren't clever enough."  
  
"There is no way that you could accidentally stumble across a secret passageway, the chances are one in a bloody million."  
  
"But it's true."  
  
Draco shook his head with a smirk on his face. "Nah, I don't believe you. C'mon, tell me how you found it," he sing-songed at her.  
  
Hermione shook her head and continued to walk back towards Hogwarts. After climbing out of the passageway and walking halfway across the grounds towards Hogwarts, Hermione decided that she had endured enough of Draco's relentless and annoying brand of Twenty questions. Stopping to face Draco, Hermione smirked. She said, "If I tell you how I found the passageway, after we get our stuff will you promise to give me something?"  
  
Draco looked at her suspiciously before answering. "What do I have to give you?"  
  
"You'll just have to wait and see." With that Hermione gave Draco a wink and continued the trek towards Hogwarts.  
  
After traversing to both the Slytherin common room and Gryffindor common room Draco stopped Hermione in the Transfiguration hallway. Hermione warily put down her bags and raised her eyebrow by way of saying 'what?'  
  
Draco folded his arms, smirked and said expectantly, "Well, you said you'd tell me after we got our stuff."  
  
Hermione smirked and said tartly, "Remus told me, Harry and Ron about it in our third year."  
  
"Is that it?" asked Draco, let down at the anti-climax of the secret. "So what do I have to give you?"  
  
"This," said Hermione whilst wrapping her arms around his neck and slowly pulling him into a kiss.  
  
Of course as soon as their lips touched the orange haired gutless wonder known as Ron Weasley came running down the hallway screaming like a banshee.  
  
Draco and Hermione broke apart and Hermione watched Ron in horror as she realized where they were. Draco was still looking at Hermione in shock. Hermione shrank her stuff and Draco's and put it all in her pocket. She grabbed Draco's hand and began running towards the Entrance Hall. "We have to get out of here," Hermione called over her shoulder to Draco. "Everyone still in the castle is contagious."  
  
Draco slowed down and said, "Granger we need to talk."  
  
"Not now. We need to get off the school grounds as quickly as possible. That way we can Apparate to Sunnydale. So you can either stay here or come with me. I'll meet you at Hogsmeade." She took off running not bothering to wait for Draco.  
  
Draco stood there trying to work out what had just happened. As he was thinking Zacharias Smith ran past him screaming curses at Harry Potter. He suddenly stopped near Draco and Draco remembered what Hermione had said. He slowly backed away as Zacharias expanded and unexpectedly exploded. Blood and guts covered the walls and floor of the hallway. "I have to get out of here," Draco muttered.  
  
He ran all the way to Hogsmeade and spotted Hermione near the Three Broomsticks. He moved toward her but she saw him and Apparated. Draco swore under his breath and Apparated to the Summers' house.  
  
"Granger!" he bellowed, "I wanna talk to you!"  
  
Hermione turned around and looked at him, utterly perplexed. Why? Well, the house was quite silent. Draco stood next to Hermione and asked, "What do you think happened?"  
  
"I don't bloody well know." Walking out of the hallway and into the lounge room they found Spike, Ariel and Dally fast asleep in various rather uncomfortable positions. Although, that was not the strange thing. Dally had a few nice bruises across his face, Ariel looked like someone had decided to take to his hair with a cheese grater and Spike looked, well, peaceful.  
  
Draco nodded and unconsciously licked his lips before saying softly, "Okay, I can deal with that."  
  
"Don't do that," said Hermione, obviously annoyed about something.  
  
"Do what?" Draco again licked his lips.  
  
Hermione's face flushed as she became more agitated. "THAT!"  
  
"What?" asked Draco with a smirk on his face, catching on to what Hermione was so annoyed about, "You don't want me to do this?" He licked his lips, slowly advancing.  
  
"No, I don't want you to do that."  
  
"Oh, come on, why shouldn't I?"  
  
Hermione stood her ground, lifted her chin up high and said, "Because."  
  
Draco simply looked at her with a questioning face. Hermione let out a frustrated sigh. "You shouldn't do it because-"  
  
Her answer was cut off by the three blonde haired blue eyed evil people in the lounge room who had just woken up. "Hermione!" Ariel squealed.  
  
Draco and Hermione turned to look at the blonde, blue eyed people. Draco raised his eyebrow at the obvious excitement his younger brother had at seeing Hermione. "Uh hey Ariel," Hermione said a little uncertainly.  
  
Ariel, satisfied that Hermione had actually spoken to him, turned to Draco and if looks could kill Draco would be ash on the ground. "Brother," Ariel greeted Draco coldly. Draco raised his eyebrows even further.  
  
Spike rolled his eyes and gave Ariel a clip round the ear. "Oh for God's sake get over it already."  
  
"Get over what?" Hermione asked curiously.  
  
Ariel blushed. "Nothing," he squeaked as he gazed at Hermione in adoration.  
  
Hermione felt extremely uncomfortable having Ariel staring at her like that. If it had been Draco it would have been a different story. But it wasn't Draco. "I'm just going to go unpack," she told everyone. She took her luggage out of her pocket and gave Draco his.  
  
Ariel's face dropped in disappointment as Hermione left the room. Draco had been watching Ariel with suspicion and when he saw the sadness in his brother's face Draco knew his suspicions were confirmed.  
  
Ariel turned back to Draco and said coolly, "So what did you and Hermione do while you were gone?"  
  
Draco rounded in on him and smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"  
  
Ariel blinked at him and said simply, "Well, yeah, I would like to know, that's why I'm asking."  
  
Dally got up, shook his head and said, "I don't wanna watch this little drama. I'm going for a feed. You wanna come?"  
  
Spike nodded and walked out with him.  
  
Ariel looked at Draco smugly and crossed his arms. "So, tell me, what did you do?"  
  
"Well," started Draco, pretending to look thoughtful, "we spent pretty much every moment together, you know, having dinner, going to class, well not really going to class so much as avoiding it, you know, normal things."  
  
"What do you mean, you spent nearly every moment with her?"  
  
"Yeah we nearly spent every moment together." After saying that Draco smirked and added in a sly wink.  
  
Ariel spluttered, astounded and said haltingly, "You-you-you..." Draco nodded, gave him one last smirk and left a stunned Ariel in the lounge room and walked into the kitchen to find Hermione standing in the kitchen, her eyebrows raised.  
  
"You heard that didn't you?" asked Draco.  
  
Hermione nodded.  
  
"You're not angry are you?"  
  
"No! Ariel was really creeping me out. He wouldn't stop staring at me."  
  
Draco watched Hermione's lips as she rambled and licked his own in anticipation. Hermione noticed and immediately stopped talking. "You're doing it again!"  
  
"Doing what?" Draco asked innocently.  
  
Ariel looked into the kitchen and saw Draco and Hermione there.  
  
"That thing you were doing before."  
  
Draco began to advance towards Hermione. He stopped in front of her. "You mean this?" he asked in a husky voice as he slowly licked his lips.  
  
Hermione stopped breathing and stared at Draco's lips. "Yeah," she breathed. They began to lean towards each other but they heard a loud coughing behind them.  
  
Draco and Hermione spun around and saw Ariel standing in the doorway. Hermione blushed profusely as Draco glared at his brother. "Oh I'm sorry," said Ariel insincerely. "I didn't interrupt something did I?"  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Draco walked into the dining room where Spike and Dally were stuffing their faces with food. Draco sat down and asked conversationally, "So what happened while we were gone? There's a funny smell in the kitchen, Andrew's hiding in a cupboard, Buffy has lost her voice, you guys look like shit and Willow, Oz and Fred are missing."  
  
Dally looked up and said with his mouth inappropriately full, "Mmughg wifsth."  
  
Spike gave him a glare and said reproachfully, "Don't speak with your mouth full. And I'll tell him what happened, as you're a bloody windbag, as we found out in that dinky little bar in the middle of ruddy nowhere."  
  
Dally just looked disgruntled and continued to stuff his face.  
  
"Okay," said Spike, "I'll tell you what happened. We battled Ethan Rayne, had a microphone war, nearly got killed by scrambled eggs and went on separate road trips. And not in that particular order."  
  
"I think I'll go ask someone else," said Draco, realising that Spike was not entirely sober.  
  
Instead, Draco found Lorne and found out exactly what happened, including Spike, Ariel and Dally's drunken road trip to Texas to get Fred and Willow, Oz and Lorne's trip to Canada, which involved a jerry can of petrol, a few matches and a whole heap of running.  
  
Draco listened to the story, interested but asked, confused, "But what did Buffy and Andrew do?"  
  
"Well," answered Lorne, "Buffy made a speech while Andrew taped it."  
  
Draco just shook his head and walked off to find something to do.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
At dinner that night, everyone gathered around the table to eat and share their stories. Well, everyone shared their stories except Draco and Hermione who were eyeing off each other across the table and Fred, who now was sitting at the table looking depressed.  
  
Ariel, who had been watching Hermione and Draco during dinner, found that his ire rose every time they shared a look. Not only that, but everyone else at the table knew what was happening between the three.  
  
At the lull in conversation at the table Ariel jumped out of his seat and announced, "I wrote a poem this afternoon and I thought you might like to hear it."  
  
Dally smirked. "Well, I'm sure we'd love to hear it," he said with a sneer.  
  
Ariel cleared his throat. "To Draco,  
  
Your legs look like stumps,  
  
You look like you have mumps,  
  
Please go DIE."  
  
Ariel stomped out of the room as everyone at the table snickered at Ariel's poem. "Hmm now I wonder what that could be about," Draco said sarcastically as everyone began to calm down.  
  
Andrew, who had been recording Ariel's recital, answered, "Well, you see, it's because-"  
  
"I was being sarcastic Andrew," said Draco.  
  
Hermione finished her dinner and walked up to the room she was sharing with Willow. There she found Ariel brooding about his miserable love life.  
  
"Ariel, hey."  
  
Ariel looked up and noticed Hermione standing in front of him. He jumped up and started kissing her before Hermione had a chance to say anything.  
  
Draco passed Hermione's open door on his way to the bathroom. He stopped and took a step back. He looked through the door and saw Hermione kissing Ariel.  
  
He stormed into the room, pulled Ariel off Hermione and then turned to Ariel, looking absolutely livid. "What the hell are you doing?"  
  
Ariel began to stutter as Draco advanced on him dangerously. Before he got close enough to physically hurt him, Hermione stepped in front of him. "Don't do anything stupid, he took me by surprise and kissed me. Really, it means nothing, just a lack of judgement by Ariel."  
  
Ariel stuck his head around Hermione and nodded.  
  
Draco pouted and said sulkily, "But I've gotta defend my girl and prove my manlihood."  
  
"You can prove your manlihood in other ways," Hermione said with a smile.  
  
As Hermione and Draco continued their flirting, Ariel rolled his eyes and walked away. Hearing yet another ruckus that was to provide the authors with yet another nifty plot device. Walking into Buffy's bedroom Ariel was surprised to see a guy he didn't know surrounded by a group of fangirls.  
  
Ariel immediately felt jealous. "What is wrong with me?" he screamed and ran off to go cry.  
  
The unknown young man said, "Hmm," then returned to his adoring fans.  
  
Buffy and Spike, having decided to "retire" for the night, walked into Buffy's room and saw the group of people. "Who the hell are you lot?" Spike demanded.  
  
"Hey there. The name's Soda," the youth said. "I'm looking for Dally."  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Dally, Draco and Hermione were standing in the hall way allegedly planning their next "party" night. "Oh look at me. I got a Pommy accent," Dally teased Draco.  
  
"Shut up Dal before I make you."  
  
Dally then heard a bloke saying his name was Soda. He frowned and walked into Buffy's room. Hermione and Draco glanced at each other, shrugged and followed Dally.  
  
Dally saw the youth before him. "Soda?"  
  
Draco and Hermione, however, were busy staring at the group of girls. "Hey Hermione. Hey Malfoy," a girl by the name of Lavender Brown said.  
  
Hermione and Draco looked on as Soda and Dally said their greetings whilst the girls surrounded them and let out a massive dramatic group sigh. It was nearly sickening. But what was even more sickening was the fact that the very people that Draco and Hermione had just gotten away from were standing in Buffy's bedroom. Pansy, Lavender, Parvati, Ginny, Padma, Luna, Millicent and Moaning Myrtle were trying to attach themselves to Soda.  
  
"ALRIGHT!" roared Spike, ceasing all activity and noise. "ALL OF YOU DOWN TO THE LOUNGE ROOM!" Seeing everyone stunned and stock still provoked Spike into one last bout of maniacal yelling. "NOW!"  
  
Everyone scuttled out of the bedroom and to the lounge room where everyone somehow managed to get their bum on a seat of some kind, whether it be someone's lap or not didn't seem to matter.  
  
Spike began pacing back and forth in the lounge room, studying the new and rather sudden arrivals to the Summers' home. "Okay, first things first, who are you?"  
  
"Well, I'm Sodapop Curtis," said the guy who was amazingly named Soda, "And these girls, well, they just sorta appeared."  
  
Spike resumed his pacing and said to the girls, "So, I'm sure you can speak, so please, do bloody well tell me who you are."  
  
Ginny stood up, nominating herself spokeswoman of the fangirls. "Well, I'm Ginny and this is Pansy, Lavender, Parvati, Padma, Luna, Millicent and Moaning Myrtle. And we all go to Hogwarts, oh, and we all love Soda." Ginny ended her introduction, and turned to Soda to give him a wink.  
  
Spike rolled his eyes and asked impatiently, "And how did you get here?"  
  
Ginny shrugged and continued smiling at Soda.  
  
"Okay," said Spike, again pacing. "Lorne, Willow and whoever else, you are to find out how they got here. Andrew, the girls will be sleeping in tents outside and Draco my boy, you are going to have a word with me right now."  
  
Draco, who had been smirking at Hermione, stopped his flirting and looked at Spike with a stricken face.  
  
"Oh, and the other two as well," added Spike.  
  
Spike led his sons down to the basement where they would be sleeping once more. Spike turned to them and folded his arms across his chest. "Okay Draco, what the hell is going on?"  
  
"Why the hell are you asking me?"  
  
"Because Mini-Red up there said they go to Hogwarts. That would be your magic school."  
  
"Well, yeah, I know them. I went to school with them but I've got no friggin idea how they got here. Or why they are worshipping some guy I've never seen before."  
  
Spike turned his attention to Dally, who was looking extremely bored. "Dally care to explain who Mr Fizzy Drink is?"  
  
"He's a mate of mine. Known him for years. Always a hit with the ladies. Pretty much everywhere he goes all the women fall in love with him."  
  
Draco, Ariel and Spike all looked at him in alarm. "Did you say all women?" Draco asked.  
  
"I wouldn't worry about Granger if I were you Draco. She seems like a one- man type of woman. And Dad from all you've said about Buffy, he tends to go for the dead rather than the living."  
  
Draco and Spike visibly relaxed although Ariel remained tense. "Dad is there anyway we can get rid of them?" Draco asked. "I mean I don't care if Drink man stays and Ginny Weasley is nice enough but all the other girls I only just escaped from. They were bloody annoying at school and I really don't want them around."  
  
"I'll see what Willow can find out." Spike looked at the ceiling and said, "I guess we'd better go back up."  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Later that evening Willow, Oz, Fred and Lorne had finally fleshed out the reason why Soda and his fangirls were all of a sudden in Sunnydale.  
  
"So," said Fred, "to summarise all that we've discovered. Soda suddenly appeared in Buffy's bedroom because of the mystical disturbance caused by Dally and Buffy sleeping together whilst Spike and Buffy were in love. Since Soda is a ladies man, the tryst between Buffy and Dally alerted him to the potential of a tryst with someone, although he never acted on it. The thought manifested itself until it grew to a point where Dally acquired three principle fangirls, who brought along more fangirls, which again manifested to become a sudden teleportation of all these people to the place where Buffy and Dally slept together."  
  
Willow needed, "That's right, now all we have do is either convince them all to leave or leave them out in the backyard."  
  
Lorne heaved a sigh and looked at the other three tired brains of the household. "Okay, that's it everyone, it's time for a 'job well done' drink. Or binge, whatever you like to call it."  
  
The other three nodded, grabbed their stuff and trooped past Soda and his fangirls out the door to their bar of choice.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Meanwhile, Hermione was sitting in the dark backyard with Draco, taking a well earned break from the Soda-adoring girls of Hogwarts. Hermione turned in her seat to look at Draco, who had leant back in his deck chair with his hands on his head.  
  
"What's wrong?" she asked.  
  
Draco groaned and took his hands slowly from his head. "Those girls have given me the biggest bloody headache."  
  
"That's not all. What else is bothering you?"  
  
Draco turned his head to look at Hermione. "And there is absolutely no privacy."  
  
Just as Hermione was about to reply Andrew and Ariel collapsed out of the back door, walked to where Draco and Hermione were sitting and plopped themselves down into a chair on either side of them. Still being angry at Ariel's recent indiscretion with Hermione, Draco didn't care too much for their intrusion.  
  
Andrew immediately began to whine about the fangirls. "They're so loud and high pitched. I mean, can't they at least pay some attention to me?"  
  
"You know," said Ariel thoughtfully to Andrew, "I thought you were the most annoying person on earth. Until I met them."  
  
"So I guess no one really likes them then," said Hermione.  
  
The three boys nodded. "In that case," continued Hermione, "I think it's time to have a bit of fun with them. What do you say to going to the basement to form a plan?"  
  
Ariel and Andrew nodded. "But I'm going there now," said Andrew.  
  
"Why?" asked Ariel.  
  
"So I get the chair."  
  
"But, it's my bedroom," argued Ariel.  
  
Andrew didn't hesitate in getting to his feet and yelling at Ariel. "Race you there!"  
  
Draco shook his head as they raced off and turned to a bemused Hermione. "What good is going to come of this?"  
  
"Well, we're going to cause a big upset so we can slip off and get that coveted privacy you wanted." Hermione bent down, softly kissed him and led him off to the basement to plan the demise of Soda's most unfortunate fangirls.  
  
Spike and Buffy stepped out from behind the tree they'd been watching the exchange from as they returned from patrol. "He's got a good one there," said Buffy.  
  
"Yeah, he's one of the lucky ones." Spike took Buffy's hand in his and they strolled over to the house.  
  
"It sort of makes you feel sorry for Ariel though."  
  
Spike looked at the love of his undead life. "What makes you say that, love?"  
  
"Well think about it Spike. Hermione is so obviously perfect for Draco. She compliments him in everyway. And they look really good together. You take one look at them when they're around each other and it's obvious they're in love. And Ariel is in love with a girl who will only ever love his older brother. It just makes me feel sorry for him sometimes. Everyone needs someone to love them."  
  
The two were silent for a moment as they sat on the back stairs. Spike broke the companionable silence the two had by saying, "So how do you think they're going to get rid of the fangirls?"  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Ariel and Andrew were both screaming ideas at the top of their lungs, while Hermione and Draco were sitting on Draco's bed with their ears covered. Hermione took out her wand and screamed, "SILENCIO!"  
  
The basement was suddenly silent. Hermione sighed in relief and Draco uncovered his ears. "Thank god," he said.  
  
"Okay you two," said Hermione, "I'm going to take off the spell and you will both get a chance to speak but one at a time."  
  
Ariel and Andrew nodded and Hermione took the spell off. Andrew and Ariel both began screaming again. "Bugger this," Draco said, and took out his own wand.  
  
Andrew and Ariel stopped shouting out of fright. Hermione pouted. "That's not fair," she said. "Why are they scared of you but not me?"  
  
"Because, I'm the dominant male figure. And I'm evil," replied Draco simply. Seeing the look on Hermione's face he quickly said, "Okay, you can drink me under the table later, but now, we need to plan some naughty little tricks."  
  
Andrew put his hand up and said proudly, "I've come up with the best idea. We should challenge them to a game of capture the flag."  
  
Ariel frowned and said to him disdainfully, "What is it with you and capture the friggin flag?"  
  
"I just thought it was a good idea..."  
  
"Well, it wasn't good enough," said Hermione. "We need something that is going to make them want to leave, something that will make them disgusted..."  
  
Draco smirked and turned to Hermione. "We could fill the lounge room with slime."  
  
Ariel joined in with another idea, "Then we could make sure that wherever they run to is covered with extremely sticky stuff."  
  
"And then when they run outside," added Hermione, "there could be a portkey or something taking them straight back to Hogwarts."  
  
The three main planners smirked and nodded their heads in agreement whilst Andrew whined loudly about not getting to play capture the flag.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Lorne, Fred, Willow and Oz made their way to the Bronze to drink, dance and, in Lorne's and an already pissed Fred's case, sing. But their good time was short lived as the four came across something that they never have before. It was Angel blind-drunk and about to bite a young girl with red hair.  
  
The girl pulled a thin wooden stick out of her pocket and stuck it through Angel's heart. He burst into dust as Willow, Oz, Lorne and Fred ran over to the girl. Willow and Oz recognised the redhead standing in front of them.  
  
"Hey you're one of Soda's fangirls," said Willow.  
  
"Ginny Weasley." She smiled at them while Willow, Oz and Lorne looked at her in shock. Fred was too busy throwing up to pay attention to what was going on. Which included Angel suddenly being alive and drunk again although no one noticed.  
  
"You're a Slayer," said Oz.  
  
Ginny frowned in confusion. "No I'm not."  
  
"But you staked a vampire. How did you know how to do that if you're not a Slayer?"  
  
"Oh we learn about vampires in Defence against the Dark Arts."  
  
"Oh. Well," said Lorne, "would you like to come to the Bronze with us?"  
  
"That's where I was headed."  
  
"Um, you guys," said Oz, "what are we gonna do with Angel?"  
  
"Hell," said Lorne, "he's already drunk so let's just take him with us." Willow looked at Lorne doubtfully. "If he gets all needy and wants to eat a few people we'll just tie him or something. No harm done." Still seeing traces of doubt Lorne continued to push her, "Oh, come one, lighten up and have some fun. You're a young and beautiful girl, what's stopping you?"  
  
"Nothing," said Willow, giving in to Lorne's wheedling.  
  
The group, now numbered at five people and one completely wiped vampire with a soul, made their way to the Bronze to party their little hearts out.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
After a night of dancing, drinking and revelling, Willow, Oz, Lorne, a pathetic Fred, Ginny and Angel arrived back at the Summers' house close to dawn to find a group of thoroughly disgruntled fangirls sitting on the front lawn covered in slimy stuff.  
  
They stood there and watched as Draco, Hermione, Ariel and Andrew walked out of the house to greet them. "Um, you mightn't want to go inside just now," said Draco.  
  
"Do I want to know what you've done?" asked Willow.  
  
Hermione turned and looked at the fangirls on the lawn. "No, you don't."  
  
Willow nodded and they all stood there in uncomfortable silence until Padma stood up and said peevishly, "That's it, I'm apparating home. You guys coming?" There was a murmur of consent and with a series of 'pops', all the fangirls except Pansy, Lavender, Parvati and Ginny were gone.  
  
Draco groaned as he saw Pansy still there. "Why are you still here?"  
  
"We're more dedicated than that," she said haughtily.  
  
Any reply that Draco had was cut off by Spike roaring, "Why in the HELL is he here?"  
  
Everyone turned to look at Angel, who was lying on the pavement, watching the trees sway in the wind. "I came back to tell Spike I had found the cutest thing in the world. And it's me!" Angel began laughing. Spike pulled out a stake and staked Angel.  
  
Only problem was that once Angel was dust, he again reassembled himself and was once more a drunken vampire.  
  
Spike repeated the process twenty times before he gave up. He shrugged and left Angel lying in the gutter. "The sun's about to come up. I'm going inside. Just leave the ponce there."  
  
Everyone went inside the house and retired to their rooms to sleep. Ariel watched in jealousy as Draco kissed Hermione goodnight and then followed him down to the basement.  
  
Dally was lying on his bed when Draco and Ariel arrived. "She doesn't love you, you know," Ariel stated.  
  
Draco shared a glance with Dally and they both rolled their eyes. "Just go to sleep Ariel," Dally said, and went to sleep himself.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
That afternoon a drunken man arrived at the Summers' house. Fred opened the door and jumped into his arms. "Darling!"  
  
Fred kissed the drunk then brought him into the lounge room where everyone was relaxing. "Who's this Fred?" asked Oz.  
  
She grinned at the group and announced, "My fiancé!"  
  
Hermione frowned and asked, "When did you do this?"  
  
"When I got kidnapped silly," she said lightly in reply. "I met him down the bar one night."  
  
Spike looked at her wearily. "So we didn't need to become enemies with the whole bloody town and get banned from the whole county?"  
  
"Well yeah," said Fred, "I wouldn't have gotten away otherwise. But, love always finds a way." She turned to her fiancé and smiled sweetly.  
  
"That –hic- it does," he slurred back at her.  
  
"So what's his name?" asked Buffy with an overly fake smile.  
  
The man broke away from Fred and said to the largely unresponsive crowd in the lounge room, "My name is Charlie Boag, owner of the Boag™ franchise and I hope you don't mind if I marry my lovely little lamb chops over there."  
  
Andrew nodded amiably and said to him, "We don't mind at all, I mean, all she does now is sit around and cry about Ariel only being fifteen. Right guys?"  
  
Everyone looked at one another uncomfortably. "Um, how about we have a drink," said Soda. "You know, to celebrate the engagement."  
  
"The beer's on me," said Boag. "After all, I do get it for free."  
  
"You do?" asked Dally with wide eyes. "You are my role model, I wanna be just like you, free beer wherever you..." Dally trailed off, a far away look in his eyes.  
  
"Okay then," said Ginny dismissively. "Soda, could you get us all a few beers?" she asked with a simpering smile.  
  
"I could," said Soda gallantly. "Would you like to come with me?"  
  
Ginny smiled and answered sweetly, "Of course."  
  
Ariel shook his head as he watched Ginny hang off Soda's arm as they walked into the kitchen. He then looked at the remaining fangirls, he decided to talk to Lavender. Ariel walked over and sat down next to her. "So, you're Lavender, right?"  
  
Lavender looked at him and nearly winced. "Uh, yeah."  
  
"How long do you think you're gonna stay here?"  
  
"Not long since..." Lavender trailed off and didn't end up finishing or even really beginning her insult as Soda walked into the room. But what she noticed was they way he looked annoyed when he saw Ariel among the fangirls, and in particular, her. She then turned and smiled seductively at Ariel, making sure that Soda was watching her and said, "I'll probably be staying a while, I mean, I haven't been able to get to know everyone yet. I really think that you're all so interesting and, well, enjoyable company."  
  
Ariel's eyes widened and glazed over as she put her hand on his arm whilst she was speaking. She leaned in closer to him and continued, "And really, you seem like such an interesting guy, I really hope that we'll spend a lot more time together..."  
  
Ariel swallowed. "Sure," he squeaked.  
  
Draco rolled his eyes and turned back to Fred and Boag. "So when is the wedding?" he asked.  
  
"On Saturday," Fred replied in excitement.  
  
Lorne's eyes widened. "The wedding is in two days?"  
  
"Yep. And you're all invited. Oh, and I'd like Buffy, Willow and Hermione to be bridesmaids."  
  
Hermione grinned at the comment. "Really? I get to be a bridesmaid? I've never been a bridesmaid before."  
  
"Hey Fred," said Spike, "vampire here."  
  
"Oh don't worry Spike you don't have to come to the ceremony. But you can still come to the reception at night."  
  
Everyone partied late into the night in celebration of Fred's sudden engagement.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
On Saturday everyone was busy getting ready to go to the reception. The ceremony had just finished and the group was about to head over to the Bronze, which they had hired for the night, so they could get in some drinking and dancing time.  
  
Ariel, who was limping around the house thanks to a nice "accident" that involved the basement stairs, a pass at Hermione and an irate Draco. Not to mention the nice cut and bruise ensemble on his cheek compliments a pass at Lavender and Soda's overwhelming pride for his dedicated fangirls. Anyway, Ariel was wondering through the house, looking for Andrew in order to hang out in their single geekiness. Walking into Andrew's domain, the kitchen, and dropped the empty glass he was holding, shattering it. Andrew and Pansy broke from their passionate kiss to see who had interrupted them.  
  
Ariel looked at them, outraged. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Well, at the moment, I just happen to be kiss-" Andrew's logical response was cut off.  
  
"No, I mean why are you breaking our pact?"  
  
Andrew looked at him, perplexed, while Pansy just looked plain annoyed.  
  
"You know the unspoken pact between us to stick together in our girlfriendlessness."  
  
"Oh, well, I guess I broke it."  
  
Ariel began to protest but was cut off by Pansy. "Look, I know you have a few issues, but there is no need to unload all your problems onto us, so, why don't you go... and do something."  
  
"Alright kids!" yelled Spike. "It's time to go!"  
  
Within a few minutes the house was emptied of all people.  
  
- - - - - - - - - -  
  
Dally fought his way through the loud crowd at the Bronze, making his way over to a resplendent Fred, who was incessantly smiling, and not just because she was married, to be frank, she was quite drunk as well. "Fred!" yelled Dally. "Oi! Fred!"  
  
Fred spun around, unbalanced. "Yeah?"  
  
"Do you know all of these people?"  
  
"No," Fred giggled. "But isn't it fun?"  
  
"Uh, yeah." Dally walked back into the crowd, ready to drink himself silly; after all, Fred'll only marry the owner of a brewery once.  
  
Dally went to the bar, only to find Ariel surrounded by empty glasses of all kinds, thoroughly drunk. "What are you doing to yourself?"  
  
Ariel looked at him groggily and slurred his reply, "I'm drinking..."  
  
"And why would that be?"  
  
Ariel simply pointed across the room of dancing and drinking people at Hermione and Draco, who were slowly dancing with each other. "Will you get over it already? Hermione isn't for you."  
  
The drunken boy's indignant and largely nonsensical reply was cut off by Boag's yells for quiet. "Everyone! I'd like to thank you all for coming-" he was cut off by someone yelling for speeches. "Uh, I don't think anyone can be bothered giving a speech, so let's just eat cake." This was greeted with yells of approval from the crowd.  
  
Before he could cut the cake Ariel stumbled forward and yelled, "Wait, I have something to say!" Ariel grabbed the microphone and cleared his throat.  
  
"I'd just like to say that I hate you all. I hate Andrew and I hate Draco and I hate my father!"  
  
As Ariel ranted on about all the people he hated, Draco and Hermione snuck away without anyone noticing.  
  
"I hate Dally and I hate Buffy and hate fangirls."  
  
Spike, Buffy and Dally moved away.  
  
"I hate-" Ariel suddenly stopped speaking and stumbled off the stage and towards a door. As he reached the bar he started vomiting. And continued to vomit.  
  
When he stopped, he staggered towards the wedding cake. Ariel stopped and looked at it, then threw up all over the cake. Fred shrieked and ran over to him. "Ariel! How could you?" she screamed. "You ruined my wedding!"  
  
Ariel turned to face her and spewed on her wedding dress. Fred looked distraught. Boag came over, punched the drunken Ariel in the face and then led Fred away.  
  
Willow and Oz looked at each other and Willow said, "Well, that was an interesting ending." 


End file.
